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About
Erika Schultz/Seattle Times
“The day is short, the task is great, the master is insistent. It is not your duty to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it….”
–Pirkei Avot, 2:21
I’ve been writing Tikun Olam, one of the earliest liberal Jewish blogs, since February, 2003. It focuses on Israeli-Palestinian peace and includes commentary on U.S. politics and human rights. Technorati ranks this blog 21st of all world politics blogs and a member of the Top 100 in that category.
I also created the Israel Palestine Forum, a discussion forum for progressives about the I-P conflict. Israel Palestine Blogs aggregates 50 peace blogs writing about the conflict. I wrote a chapter for the Independent Jewish Voices essay collection, A Time to Speak Out. I’m a regular contributor to Truthout and contributed to Haaretz, Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free and Al Jazeera English. My work has also been in the Seattle Times, American Conservative Magazine, Beliefnet and Tikkun Magazine. I’ve done several segments for Al Jazeera TV’s Listening Post and Israel’s Channel 10 Tzinor Layla news program. The NY Times featured my reporting about the Shamai Leibowitz FBI tapes on its front page.
I attended Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, earning a BA and Bachelor of Hebrew Literature. I have an MA in Comparative Literature from UCLA and studied toward a PhD at UC Berkeley. My languages were Hebrew and Yiddish. I spent an undergraduate and graduate year studying Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University. I was a co-founder of the Bay Area Jewish Music Festival.
Born and raised in the Hudson River Valley, my father’s family’s roots go back to Peekskill, NY in the 1920s. I’ve always had an abiding affection for the River and the Hudson Highlands. In 1969, I crewed for a week on Pete Seeger’s sloop, Clearwater.
I have been interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since I was a teenager in 1967 and have worked all my adult life to promote dialogue and mutual recognition. I am a progressive (critical) Zionist. I support a two state solution to the conflict involving Israeli withdrawal roughly to pre-67 borders (with some adjustments) and an internationally guaranteed peace agreement with the Palestinians.
I love photography and have an online photo gallery, Into the Great Wide Open, devoted to the outdoors and gardening. Images there are available for purchase.
I hike the Cascades and try to go during summer though that’s become increasingly difficult with three young children. I have always loved folk and traditional music including world music. My wife, three children and dog live in a Craftsman home (1906) near the western shores of Lake Washington.
Favorite Yiddishisms: “Sleep faster, we need the pillows!” ”We Jews are so happy…our enemies should only be so happy!”
Tikun Olam is a Mishnaic term meaning “repair [or mend] the world.”
Unlike some religious traditions, Judaism comprehends evil as something inherently human. In the Zohar, it is this evil or impurity which causes the sacred keylim (“vessels”) to break. Performance of mitzvot (“commandments”) are the means to repair the vessels and so transmute evil into good.
A Kabbalist would have no problem understanding that hatred and violence between Israels and Palestinians are evils that pollute the world. Likewise, I’d like to think such a Kabbalist might look favorably on efforts like this blog to repair this battered region with acts of gemilut chesed (“lovingkindness”).
Speaking engagements: I am available to give talks, lectures, and workshops.
Support Tikun Olam: This blog is a no-profit enterprise done for love and passion. I gratefully accept donations from those who find value in what I do (see Paypal link above). Another way to support the site is by buying books and CDs through the Tikun Olam Store or links in individual posts. If you visit Amazon through this site, anything you buy there will provide a 5% fee back to me.
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Promotion: Help boost Tikun Olam’s readership by liking and retweeting posts via Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Facebook. Friends of this site generate a substantial amount of site traffic, which promotes the idea of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Click on the Share buttons accompanying each post to submit it to whichever site you belong to.
Tell your friends about this site. Send them links to posts. Link to my posts at other sites you visit and raise the “still small voice” of peace.
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Story Tips: I welcome story ideas from readers. Please include a link and any other documenting information you can provide (stories based on rumors or thinly-sourced material are problematic). And PLEASE make sure you’ve verified the accuracy of your story and that the information is up to date.
E-Mail: E mail sent to me may be quoted in posts unless the author specifically requests that a message be considered private. If it seems obvious to me that a message is meant to be private I will consider it such, but don’t assume I know your intentions unless you state them. The more abusive an e mail is the less likely I may be to honor any demand for privacy.
Pro-Israel: a note about the term ‘pro-Israel’ as used in this blog. I consider myself a supporter of Israel. However, this term has been hijacked by Israel lobby groups like AIPAC. I’ve found it difficult to come up with an all-round phrase to characterize those who are right-wing regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So if you read the term “pro-Israel” with an adjective like “nationalist,” “extremist,” “right-wing,” etc. please know that it’s not support for Israel that I’m disparaging, but a particular type of right-wing perspective on Israeli-Palestinian politics.
Disclaimer: This blog is not affiliated in any way with Rabbi Michael Lerner’s estimable Tikkun Magazine.+
