[lbo-talk] Lerner re-takes Tikkun, plans less, though more loving, coverage of Israel

[Joel Schalit]

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for your note, and your kind words about the mag. I appreciate  
your line of questioning here.  I don't want to let your long and  
thoughtful note go unanswered. Unfortunately, despite the contents of  
the Forward piece, there really aren't any serious philosophical  
reasons for my departure. I'm leaving because I've accomplished  the  
editorial &  business tasks I was asked to tackle upon being hired in  
2004.

During this  time, I've been under contract to write a book, and have  
made extremely slow progress on its completion. This Fall, I went  
through a period of  reflecting back on everything I'd done, and  
figuring out whether I could complete my book remaining as managing  
editor. Given the depth of my responsibilities at Tikkun, I realized   
that I couldn't, and that I had to make a choice. I chose my book.

As much as it might seem as though there's some congruency between my  
blog entries and what my boss is quoted as saying in the Forward  
piece, there's none of consequence. As any  Mid-East editor will tell  
you, such beats are ideologically charged & subject to enormous  
stresses. Nobody understands that better than Michael Lerner. In the  
case of liberal US Jewish periodicals, you can imagine what the deal  
might be.

As both a writer and an editor, I've always missed reading about the  
actual work that the many people in my editorial position do, and how  
they politically feel about the experience. Both Michael's words and  
my bog entries reflect that in two entirely different contexts.   
Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to do more of this  before  
leaving. Those are just fragments.  But I'll definitely be doing so  
more in the future.

Best Regards, Joel








On Dec 30, 2006, at 6:06 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote:

>
> Joel thanks for responding.
>
> Well, I was afraid you wouldn't want to go into personal details. I
> did go back and read your Tikkun blogs from November and
> December. However, it would be good to hear the more abstract or
> philosophical or theoretical version without the references. I sense
> an intellectual dispute, and it would be interesting and informative
> to understand what that was---not for its gossip value, but whatever
> light it might shed on larger issues of politics and culture.
>
> In any event, I've looked up Tikkan on various occasions over the last
> three years, but more for historical background rather than current
> events. Although I have to admit, I usually lost myself in interest in
> the current essays on culture and books. The intention to those
> readings were to gain some perspective on Strauss and Weimar and
> whatever I could find on the kind of political arena that shaped
> Zionism and Israel long before its emergence as a country. I think
> there are profound lessons to be found in that history, especially
> looking backward from this demented era.
>
> ``Not as interested in religion theologically as I am politically.''
>
> Niether am I of course. I would have never opened a bible if it
> hadn't been for the righwing take over in the US. But I have come to
> think that obscure theological themes and their debates are a form of
> political thinking that link up theology, philosophy and politics, and
> the main trace or thread that connects them all is their ethical world
> view, made politically manifest in law and social policy.  These
> connections between theology or religion and politics are obviously
> not limited to Judaism and Israel, since the whole thrust of the US
> domestic policy agenda under the current rightwing follows a
> theological-political thread from various interpretations of
> Christianity where fundamentalists, Catholics, and less strident
> Protestant denominations clammer away in the political arena, not
> unlike the various Calvinist factions did in Spinoza's Amsterdam.
>
> (It's a nice irony that the Right has fallen from public grace on all
> these religious and ethical fabrications of their own making.)
>
> Although I am completely ignorant of the Moslem world and Islam
> outside of the US news media, it is apparent that a similar
> intellectual trace with its own historical nodes drives events and
> people from North Africa to Pakistan and beyond. I even tried reading
> the Koran after getting disgusted with the Old Testament and found it
> even more impossible to read. But I thought of all the religious texts
> I've tried to fathom it was probably the most command driven,  
> political
> and legalistic of all. That is to say, the most easily adapted to the
> formation of an authoritarian state. I am afraid I complete disagree
> with Yoshie on whatever positive or progressive themes she finds in
> the Iran regime. Although I must say it was pure geopolitical (read
> anti-American) brilliance on Chavez's part to link up with Iran while
> he simultaneous decounted home heating oil in the US
> northeast. There's some triangulation.
>
> In any event, I would certainly prefer to think about cultural
> developments, but the dominance of a theological interpenetrated
> political milieu and the devastation it has wrecked on everything  
> that used
> to constitute a US secular civil society, especially this insane  
> war has
> simply erased any other interest---well, most of the time.
>
> Good luck with your book.
>
> CG
>
>
>
>
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