The Power of Example
for Michelle Conley For years in my Social Justice course at Saint Louis University, I assigned the 1993 paperback by Cao Ngoc Phuong entitled, Learning True Love: How I Learned & Practiced Social Change in Vietnam….
Category: Activists
Jimmy Carter and Rachel Corrie
I am thinking of Jimmy Carter and Rachel Corrie, and how they are quite similar. Not on the surface, for who could more dissimilar: A young college student and an august former statesman. But I can…
Allen Ginsberg: What’s More Important than Hope
Via email I received an essay by Bay Area activist and founder of Middle East Children’s Alliance, Barbara Lubin. In her conclusion on her 20+years of activism on Israel/Palestine, she writes the following… And what…
Reputation
On Shirin Ebadi, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope (With Azadeh Moaven) But a personal story is more powerful than any dry summary of why a given law should be changed. To attract people’s…
The Only Statement That Counts
for Yoshifugi In 1974 at an amazing conference was held at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York. Christians and Jews gathered to confront the question, “Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?” Catholic theologians…
Dangerous Solidarity
This week, March 24, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of when El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass. A month before, he had sent a letter to then-president Jimmy Carter, imploring him to…
Being at the End of the Year: Reflections on Hope
For Andrew Wimmer Exuberance is Beauty. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell[1] It’s been a rough year. Just considering the big picture, to think of Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, and Rafah, is enough…
Joyfully Together
One of the recommendations I have given some of my students who want to move in the direction of a deeper commitment to social justice after university studies is: Find and nurture a community. Without other…
In Gratitude for Howard Zinn
The other night at the Webster University Film Series, I saw the documentary-tribute: Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. It is an inspirational portrait of a working-class Jewish man who served…
Righteous Jews
for Hedy Epstein A reflection on Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin, ed., The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New York: The New Press, 2002). 1. When I came back from Palestine after working…