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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
It’s summertime and this means vacation for some of us, and people will be browsing in chain bookstores for the perfect summer escapist read: mysteries, sci-fi, biographies, anything to take our minds off of work,…
In April 2004 Marc Ellis invited Hedy Epstein and me to come to speak at Baylor University. Marc had been my professor at Maryknoll and had supported my work on Elie Wiesel. During a visit…
Edward Said died last fall, and his loss has been felt throughout the Arab world. When I was in Palestine, in both Gaza City and Ramallah, there were posters all over the place commemorating Said’s …
East Timor’s Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance — A Testimony. By Constâncio Pinto and Matthew Jardine.South End Press, $16.00. After over two decades of relentless persecution, the people of East Timor received a belated…
First published in National Catholic Reporter, March 1995 A time for self-congratulation, or self-interrogation? Over the next several months, U.S. citizens will be reminded of the end to the horrors of World War II fifty…