> Can you
> clarify how Tikkun decides to endorse a campaign,
> communicates that position to and mobilizes its
> Community? What's your role and responsibility in
all
> that as managing editor?
This isn't the place to try to get Joel to talk about the policies of his employer. It's a public list with a very public archive. Please desist.
Doug
AS: Ok. I didn’t say anything like "denounce your employer", as Joel suggested earlier; that’s not my intention. I think it’s important for Jews to work in Jewish frameworks to oppose the occupation and to oppose linking U.S. and Israeli policy in a common "war on terrorism"—in part because some Jews, whether consciously or unconsciously, only have ears open to other Jews to discuss this.
If Joel’s opened the door so that divestment can be discussed at Tikkun, good for him. In my experience (including my own as an editor), it’s rarely the action of a heroic editor but the internal debates and the pressure of people with an agenda and a demand for accountability that produces change in policy—JVP and Jews for a Free Palestine are good for that. Tiptoeing to the precipice of divestment in 2005 is very different from calling for it in 2002, when you were much more likely to get charges of "anti-semitism" or "self-hating" thrown in your face. Calling for severing the tie between the US and Israel now is very different from calling for it in 2002, when activists of color got thrown under the bus for doing so. And of course, there’s a difference between a position on paper (if Tikkun has taken one—the posted Lerner excerpt doesn’t really make that clear) and moving your organization behind a policy—as the recent long Nation article on "The Israeli Divestment Debate" (5/8/06) makes clear, in its survey of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s decision and efforts to roll it back (no mention of Tikkun here).
Unlike Bad Subjects (which Joel brought up earlier), Tikkun sees itself as more than a magazine; it’s a synagogue, a Community, a new social movement, building a Network of Spiritual Progressives, etc. I think the above are legitimate questions—particularly when he’s posting about the positions of Tikkun on-list.
Joel posted his position on boycotts and divestment a month ago
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20060529/039478.html
and wrote that I could ask him about it, so I’ll just do that and chill
regards, aaron
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com