Editor | Michael Lerner |
---|---|
Frequency | quarterly |
Circulation | 18,000 [1] |
Publisher | Duke University Press |
Founded | 1986 |
Final issue | May 2024 |
Country | United States |
Based in | Berkeley, California |
Website | www |
ISSN | 0887-9982 |
Tikkun was a quarterly interfaith Jewish left-progressive magazine and website, published in the United States, that analyzed American and Israeli culture, politics, religion, and history in the English language. The magazine consistently published the work of Israeli and Palestinian left-wing intellectuals, but also included book and music reviews, personal essays, and poetry.
In 2006 and 2011, the magazine was awarded the Independent Press Award for Best Spiritual Coverage by Utne Reader [2] [3] for its analysis of the inability of many progressives to understand people's yearning for faith, and the American fundamentalists' political influence on the international conflict among religious zealots.
The magazine was founded in 1986 [4] [5] by Michael Lerner and his then-wife Nan Fink Gefen. Since 2012, its publisher was Duke University Press. Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, led by Rabbi Michael Lerner, was loosely affiliated with Tikkun magazine. It described itself as a "hallachic community bound by Jewish law". [6]
In April 2024, the magazine announced its was closing due to a lack of funding, and the poor health of its founder Michael Lerner who could not find a successor. [7] [8] [9]
The magazine's title came from mystical Hebrew concept tikkun olam (Hebrew : תיקון עולם; "healing or restoring the world"), emphasizing both humanity's and God's co-responsibility "to heal, repair and transform the world".
Initially, Nan Fink Gefen, at the time married to Lerner, devoted financial resources and served as a hands-on publisher until she left as their marriage ended in 1991. [10] [11] In 1997 a fellow 1960s-activist Danny Goldberg, a major music industry figure heavily involved in the ACLU, became co-publisher with his father, Victor. During these years, prominent journalists such as Jack Newfield interviewed national and international leaders such as Mario Cuomo and Haiti's embattled President Aristide to bring more credibility to the growing influence of the magazine. From 2001 through 2010, Lerner's sister, Trish Vradenburg, and her husband George Vradenburg served as co-publishers. [12] [13] [14]
Founded in 1986, the magazine's editorial policy was shaped by Nan Fink Gefen, Michael Lerner, and Peter Gabel. According to the founding editorial statement, [15] political concerns of the 1960s civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements and psychological studies of workers in the 1970s and 1980s were their most direct influences. Among authors who contributed to the magazine's interfaith character were the historian Christopher Lasch, philosopher Cornel West, and Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School.
Obliquely confronting more conservative American Jewish community's Commentary Magazine, which caused some members of the Editorial Board, including Elie Wiesel, to resign, [16] [17] the magazine introduced itself with prominent ads placed in leading intellectual papers and journals declaring a new voice for the Jewish Left. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's legacy of "prophetic" Jewish activism has been honored and analyzed from the first issue onward. In every issue, it was stated that its articles "do not necessarily reflect Tikkun's position on any issue", [18] and its editor, Rabbi Michael Lerner, has written that he "often consciously seeks to print articles with which he disagrees". [19]
In 2001 the magazine's interfaith activist community's website, the Network of Spiritual Progressives , initially named the Tikkun Community, was established by founders that include Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, and Cornel West, a Princeton University professor of religion, in order to engage readers in broader activism and broaden the magazine's appeal to non-Jewish readers. [20] Challenging the anti-religious and anti-spiritual biases within liberal culture and "replacing world domination with generosity" are among the ideas that are supported by the community.
In her book, If I Am Not For Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews , American conservative author Ruth Wisse argues that Tikkun is one of a group of left-of-center Jewish organizations and publications founded in the 1980s without explaining why a new, Jewish publication was needed to cover issues already covered by such existing publications as Dissent. Wisse argues that the actual motivation was a need felt by highly educated Jews to counter rising antisemitism on the left by means of "public avowals of kindliness and liberalism." [21]
In 2005 Manfred Gerstenfeld cited an article published by Tikkun— Joel Kovel’s "On Left Anti-Semitism and the Special Status of Israel" (May/June 2003) — as one of two examples of "essays of Jewish authors using anti-Semitic arguments". [22] In his article, Kovel described Israel as a racist state that "automatically generates crimes against humanity and lacks the internal means of correcting them", adding that such a state "cannot have that legitimacy which gives it the right to exist". [23]
In a 2006 column, Alan Dershowitz wrote that "Tikkun is quickly becoming the most virulently anti-Israel screed ever published under Jewish auspices" and that "support for Tikkun is support for the enemies of Israel". [24] Dershowitz and his books have been the targets of criticism in the pages of Tikkun (for example: May/June 1997, September/October 1997, November/December 1997, January/February 1999).
In 1997 former Tikkun editors accused Lerner of publishing pseudonymous letters to the editor that he himself had written. While many of the letters were laudatory ("Your editorial stand on Iraq said publicly what many of us in the Israeli peace camp are feeling privately but dare not say."), a few were critical ("Have you gone off your rocker?"). Lerner admitted that he had written the letters but said his only mistake was not informing readers that the authors' names were pseudonyms. [25]
Notable contributors have included Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, [26] Everett Gendler, [27] Arthur Waskow, [28] and Jeremy Ben-Ami. [29]
Tikkun won the Magazine of the Year: Overall Excellence award from the Religion Newswriters Association in 2014 and 2015. [34] [35] [36] The magazine also received the Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Special Sections or Supplements in 2009. [37]
Michael Lerner was an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.
The Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair was a public controversy involving academics Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005.
The Case for Israel is a 2003 book by Alan Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard University. The work is a response to common criticisms of Israel. The Case for Israel was a New York Times bestseller. It also led to the public controversy known as the Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Moment is an independent magazine which focuses on the life of the American Jewish community. It is not tied to any particular Jewish movement or ideology. The publication features investigative stories and cultural criticism, highlighting the thoughts and opinions of diverse scholars, writers, artists and policymakers. Moment was founded in 1975, by Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and Jewish activist Leonard Fein, who served as the magazine's first editor from 1975 to 1987. In its premier issue, Fein wrote that the magazine would include diverse opinions "of no single ideological position, save of course, for a commitment to Jewish life." Hershel Shanks served as the editor from 1987 to 2004. In 2004, Nadine Epstein took over as editor and executive publisher of Moment.
Jacob Shmuel Boteach, known as Shmuley Boteach, is an American rabbi, author, and media host.
The terms "self-hating Jew", "self-loathing Jew", and "auto-antisemite" are pejorative terms used to describe a Jew whose viewpoints on a specific matter, especially issues relating to Israel, are perceived as antisemitic.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is an American non-profit pro-Israel media-monitoring, research and membership organization. According to its website, CAMERA is "devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East." The group says it was founded in 1982 "to respond to The Washington Post's coverage of Israel's Lebanon incursion", and to respond to what it considers the media's "general anti-Israel bias".
The Network of Spiritual Progressives(NSP) is an international political and social justice movement based in the United States that seeks to influence American politics towards more humane, progressive values. The organization also challenges what it perceives as the misuse of religion by political conservatives and the anti-religious attitudes of many liberals. In the international sphere, the NSP seeks to foster inter-religious understanding and work for social justice.
Spiritual left refers to a spiritually or religiously based position that shares the social transformative vision of the political left and its commitment to social justice, peace, economic equality, and ecological consciousness, but who base their commitment on spiritual or religious traditions.
The Politics of Anti-Semitism is a book edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair and published by AK Press in 2003.
Ruth Wisse is a Canadian academic and is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University emerita. She is a scholar of Yiddish literature and of Jewish history and culture.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.
The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish self-hatred, and the Jews is a collection of essays by playwright David Mamet, published by Nextbook/Schocken in 2006.
Jill Jacobs is an American Conservative rabbi who serves as the executive director of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, formerly Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. She is the author of Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community and There Shall be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition. This book includes chapters on tzedakah, poverty, health care, housing, labor, criminal justice, and environmental justice in America, seen through a Jewish viewpoint. She has served as the Rabbi in Residence of Jewish Funds for Justice and as the Director of Outreach and Education for Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.
Antony Lerman is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, a think tank on issues affecting Jewish communities in Europe. From December 1999 to 2006, he was Chief Executive of the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation, renamed the Rothschild Foundation Europe in 2007. He is a founding member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights, and a former editor of Patterns of Prejudice, a quarterly academic journal focusing on the sociology of race and ethnicity.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Trish Vradenburg was an American playwright, author, television writer, and advocate of research to cure Alzheimer's disease.
George Vradenburg is an American attorney, who has been chief counsel at America Online Inc. and CBS Inc., and senior executive at AOL Time Warner and Fox Broadcasting Company. He is co-founder and chairman of USAgainstAlzheimer's (USA2), an Alzheimer's advocacy organization., and co-publisher of Tikkun, an English-language magazine with a progressive viewpoint.
Nadine Epstein an American journalist and author.
In November, Rabbi Michael Lerner's erudite rejoinder to the religious right released Tikkun Reader: Twentieth Anniversary (Rowman & Littlefield) to showcase memorable essays from the bimonthly magazine's all-star cast of contributors
Illuminated by the Jewish faith but accessible to all, Tikkun aims to 'mend, repair and transform the world'