Event Details
Religious Upheaval and Its Effects on U.S. Policy Toward the Middle East - Arthur Waskow
| Date/Time: | Tuesday, 28 Oct 2008 at 8:00 pm |
| Location: | Sun Room, Memorial Union |
| Contact: | |
| Phone: | 515-294-9934 |
| Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center, is involved in numerous interreligious projects that address issues of peace and social justice, the environment, and community building. He is recognized as a writer and teacher of Jewish history and theology and a leader in the movement for Jewish renewal. In 2007, Newsweek magazine named him one of the fifty most influential American rabbis. For fourteen years Waskow was a Resident Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, a center for independent analysis of governmental policy and social change. He is the author or editor of over two dozen books, including Godwrestling, Down-to-Earth Judaism, and, most recently, The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. He earned a PhD in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin. Part of the World Affairs Series: Why Should We Care? Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Ph. D., founded (in 1983) and directs The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org, a prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American life that brings Jewish and other spiritual thought and practice to bear on seeking peace, pursuing justice, healing the earth, and celebrating community. He edits and writes for its weekly on-line Shalom Report. In 1996, Waskow was named by the United Nations a "Wisdom Keeper" among forty religious and intellectual leaders who met in connection with the Habitat II conference in Istanbul. In 2001, he was presented with the Abraham Joshua Heschel Award by the Jewish Peace Fellowship. In 2005, he was named by the Forward, the leading Jewish weekly in America, one of the "Forward Fifty" as a leader of the Jewish community. In 2007, he was named by Newsweek one of the fifty most influential American rabbis, and was presented with awards and honors by groups as diverse as the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement of Philadelphia and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Since 1969, Waskow has been one of the leading creators of theory, practice, and institutions for the movement for Jewish renewal. Among his seminal works in this area have been -- • The Freedom Seder (l969), the first Haggadah for Passover to intertwine the archetypal liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Mitzrayyim with the modern liberation struggles not only of the Jewish people, but also the Black community in America and other peoples. The Freedom Seder has become a model for many Jews during the past generation to shape Passover Seders to celebrate their own commitments to emerging aspects of liberation -- such as environmental concerns, feminism, and the freedom of Tibet. • Godwrestling (Schocken, l978), an examination of new ways of interpreting Torah and applying it to contemporary issues, as they emerged in the early havurot. • These Holy Sparks: The Rebirth of the Jewish People (Harper and Row, l983), a study of the history and meaning of the Jewish renewal movement in North America, 1967 to 1982. • Seasons of Our Joy (Bantam, l982; Summit, 1985; Beacon, 1990 and 1991), a history of the development of the Jewish festivals; a pioneering reinterpretation of their meaning in the cycles of earth, sun, and moon; a guide to the festivals as steps in a spiritual journey; and a practical handbook for observing them today. • Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life (Morrow, 1995), an examination of how the everyday ethics and practices of the Jewish people have evolved over the centuries and are still evolving, in response to the changing cultures and societies in which Jews lived, and in constant effort to shape a holistic and holy lifepath that cares for the earth. • Godwrestling - Round 2 : Ancient Wisdom, Future Paths (Jewish Lights, 1996), a midrashic reexamination of the meanings of God, Torah, Israel, humanity, and earth in the light of 25 years of the movement for Jewish renewal. (This book won the Benjamin Franklin Award.) He co-authored with Rabbi Phyllis Berman A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Path (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002). In 2006, he co-authored The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Beacon Press) with Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz). He had primary editorial responsibility for two pioneering anthologies on eco-Judaism: With Ari Elon and Naomi Mara Hyman, he co-edited Trees, the Earth, and Torah: A Tu B'Shvat Anthology, a new addition to the classic "Festival Anthology" series of the Jewish Publication Society (1999). And he edited another anthology of texts and articles on eco-Judaism: Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought (2 vols., Jewish Lights, 2000). Waskow has taught as a Visiting Professor in the religion departments of Swarthmore College (1982-83, on the thought of Martin Buber and on the Book of Genesis and its rabbinic and modern interpretations); Temple University (1975-76 on contemporary Jewish theology and 1985-86, on liberation theologies in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); Drew University (1997) on Judaism and the environment and on emerging feminist and neo-Hassidic theologies of Judaism in America; and Vassar College (1998) on the theology and practice of Jewish renewal and feminist Judaism; and from 1982 to 1989 on the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (contemporary theology and practical rabbinics). In 1993, Waskow cofounded ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, From then till 2005, Waskow was first a Pathfinder and then the Tikkun Olam Fellow of ALEPH, through which he did research, wrote, and spoke to explore and deepen the renaissance of North American Jewish culture and community. In 1978, he founded Menorah, a journal of Jewish renewal; from 1984 to 2004 he was its editor as the ALEPH quarterly journal New Menorah. Beginning in 1995, Waskow has taken a vigorously active role in a number of Jewish, multi-religious, and socially responsible Email list-serves to discuss various issues in such a way as to unite spiritual and political concerns. He has created a treasury of midrash, prayer, and essays on contemporary issues in the same vein on the Shalom Center Website www.shalomctr.org. In 1996, Jason Aronson published a collection of new midrashic stories that Waskow co-authored with his wife, Rabbi Phyllis Berman, entitled Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World. With his children David and Shoshana, he wrote a book of midrashic tales of the Creation for children and adults, Before There Was a Before. Together with his brother Howard, he wrote Becoming Brothers (Free Press, 1993). It is a "wrestle in two voices," a joint autobiography focused on the conflicts and relationships between the two brothers. Waskow has spoken widely and led retreats and study groups at synagogues, universities, inter-religious convocations, and churches, on Jewish renewal, the meaning of recent religious upheavals throughout the world, the practice and meaning of the spiral of Jewish festivals, religious perspectives on environmental issues, and the spiritual roots of tikkun olam (action to heal the world). He was born in Baltimore in l933. He took a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University (1954) and a doctorate in United States history from the University of Wisconsin (1963). His dissertation was on "The Race Riots of 1919." It was incorporated into a book, From Race Riot to Sit-in, 1919 and the 1960s: A Study in the Connections between Conflict and Violence (Doubleday, l966). He worked from 1959 to 1961 as legislative assistant for a Member of the United States House of Representatives, and from 1961 to 1963 as Senior Fellow of the Peace Research Institute. In 1961, he was a Fellow of the Colloquium on Conflict Resolution and Disarmament held by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, He was among the founders and for fourteen years (1963-1977) was a Resident Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, a pioneering center for independent analysis of governmental policy and social change. During this period, Waskow wrote The Limits of Defense (with Marcus Raskin; Doubleday, l962), three other books, several monographs, and numerous articles on nuclear strategy, deterrence, disarmament, and conflict theory. He also wrote Running Riot (Herder and Herder, l970), on the roles of violence and non-violence in the process of American social change. He joined in founding and for three years was secretary-treasurer of the Conference on Peace Research in History. Through the l960s, Waskow was active in writing, speaking, electoral politics, and nonviolent action against the Vietnam War. In 1964 he worked closely with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. In 1965 he spoke at the first anti-war Teach-in (at the University of Michigan), and at many thereafter; in 1967 he was co-author of "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" (urging support for those who were resisting the draft and the war); and in 1968 he was elected an anti-war delegate from the District of Columbia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In 1981 and 1986, in concert with other anti-war activists he won a lawsuit against the FBI for illegal harassment of his anti-war work, under its COINTELPRO program. (See a chapter of In Our Defense, a book on the Bill of Rights by Caroline Kennedy and Ellen Alderman, for a discussion of this case.) From 1977 to 1982, Waskow was a Fellow of the Public Resource Center in Washington, D.C., where he led a long-term research project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, on economic, environmental, technological, and public-policy aspects of community-based generation and use of renewable energy and energy conservation. After Waskow became a writer and teacher of Jewish history and theology, he helped found the National Havurah Committee, was a member of its board from l978 to l980 and from l983 to l987, and from 1984 to 1996 was a member of the Board of the P'nai Or Religious Fellowship. During the 1980s and 1990s he was at various times a member of the editorial boards of the Reconstructionist, Religion and Intellectual Life, Social Policy, Cross Currents, and Tikkun magazines. He has worked since 1969 for peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, and was among those invited by the White House to take part in the signing of the Declaration of Principles by Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat in 1993. He wrote the "Seder for the Children of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah," published in Tikkun magazine in 1999 -- a Passover Seder focused on peace-making between Israelis and Palestinians. Through 2001 he worked closely with Rabbis for Human Rights (Israel) to create the successful "Olive Trees for Peace" campaign, and from 2002 to 2005 was secretary of the Board of Rabbis for Human Rights/ North America. In 1995, Waskow was ordained a Rabbi by a beit din made up of one Rabbi whose rabbinic lineage was Hassidic, one Conservative Rabbi, one Reform Rabbi, and a feminist theologian. Waskow has been active in several inter-religious projects. He was a Washington Associate of the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy (1979-1982), and a Fellow of the Coolidge Research Colloquium of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life in 1983. During the 1980s he was a member of the steering committee of Choose Peace, an inter-religious group addressing the dangers of the nuclear arms race, and in the early 1990s he was a member of the steering committee of In Defense of Creation, an inter-religious environmental group. During the winter of 1996 he held the Gamaliel Chair in Religion, Peace, and Justice sponsored by the Lutheran community of Milwaukee. He has written for such journals as Sojourners, Cross-Currents, The Other Side, National Catholic Reporter, and Witness. In 1997, using Email and the World-Wide Web, he initiated a world-wide observance of the 25th yohrzeit (death-anniversary) of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in which more than 400 Jewish and Christian communities and congregations participated. He created a unique on-line resource of passages and essays by and about Heschel (now located in the "Torah" section of www.shalomctr.org). He was one of the major speakers at the foremost observance of Heschel's yohrzeit in New York City In 1998, he initiated the Free Time/ Free People project, a joint exploration by secular scholars, religious leaders, and political organizers of the economic, cultural, and religious factors involved in the pressures toward overwork and underemployment in American society. The Free Time project explores the economic and cultural changes that would encourage the protection of Free Time for family and community life and for self-renewal.. Waskow has published articles in Sojourners, The Other Side, Tikkun, Witness, Bearing Witness, and The Nation on this question. Cosponsored By:
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