Tikkun Leader Urges Students To Organize for Peace

Student activism has the power to push the U.S. government to end the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, an organizer from the Tikkun Community told a handful of students at Winthrop House Friday.

The meeting was part of a nationwide push by the Tikkun Community—a politically liberal organization with Jewish roots that advocates peace and spirituality—to build activism on college campuses.

“We support a middle path, the most constructive possible path,” said Tikkun National Organizer Marisa Handler.

Until now, Handler said, the only political attitudes toward the conflict in Israel and Palestine have been extremes.

According to Handler, Tikkun’s solution—called “The Third Path”—is one of moderation.

After going around the room and asking everyone to name their favorite books, Handler began to describe the Tikkun vision for the Middle East.

In part, the group’s plan calls for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, giving the Jewish parts of Jerusalem to Israel and the Palestinian parts to Palestine and international guarantees of security for a stable new Palestinian state and for Israel.

Despite the harrowing experience of receiving hate-mail and death threats—a first for her—Handler said she has been amazed by the enthusiasm for Tikkun’s plan, even among novice activists.

“This is something that people were waiting for,” she said.

She said that when Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun’s magazine, called around 25 members of Congress, they encouraged him in his mission. All that was missing was the support of the constituents, she said.

Handler’s trip to Harvard is part of a bid to get that constituency. Tikkun organizers have been traveling to campuses across the country, Handler said, to build the Tikkun Campus Network, which she hopes will become a cohesive front with political power.

“There are a lot of local groups. We’re looking to bring that together,” Handler said.

One crucial aspect of that effort is a conference in New York City, scheduled for Oct. 11-14. Boasting such speakers as Cornel R. West ’74, the former Fletcher University professor who left Harvard for Princeton this year, the conference is titled “Healing Israel and Palestine: Strategies for Peace and Reconciliation.”

Handler, who will also be speaking at the conference, said she hopes that campus activism, along with the New York event, will bring the “Third Path” nationwide attention.

Recruiting Harvard students is a special opportunity, Handler said.

“Harvard’s an interesting case in point, a place where the dialogue’s been very polarized, partly because of [University President Lawrence H.] Summers...This is fertile ground, for certain,” Handler said.

Ari K. Appel ’03, who organized Friday’s meeting, said he was planning to form a Tikkun group at Harvard.

“I think Tikkun—their moderate path to peace—is so, so important,” Appel said. “I think it has to work this way, it doesn’t work any other way...we need to adopt this Tikkun stance.”

While neither members of the Harvard Students for Israel (HSI) nor the Harvard Islamic Society (HIS) attended the event, they said they were not convinced the ideas would secure change in the Middle East.

“It sounds reasonable enough,” said HSI President David B. Adelman ’04. “But it doesn’t sound like anything new...These are the things everybody says will eventually happen. What means are they going to use to achieve this, that’s the biggest question.”

Tariq M. Yasin ’04, vice president of HIS, wrote in an e-mail that HIS “supports actions towards ending the current conflict.”

Handler said that in the face of tension stretching back thousands of years, she remains optimistic.

“People say to me, ‘It’ll never work, you’re an idealist,’” she said. “But it’s happened...Ghandi...Mandela...These people were viewed as total idealists.”