Judaism

• October 13, 2008

  Lose Weight and Lose War: The Infinite Paths to Peace

  This is a wonderful video about yet another way that people without any training in conflict resolution or diplomacy can become a part of the solution rather than part of the problem when it comes to global conflicts. I call them citizen diplomats, and I think they represent the infinite and creative ways that individuals can choose to move beyond the boundaries of group hatreds and fears.

  Starting after the Muslim Ramadan and the Jewish New Year, group of Palestinian and Israeli women will be meeting face to face in Jerusalem. Not for political reasons, not to cast blame on who’s right or wrong in the Middle East conflict – these women will be focusing on their waistline, and sharing a simple and common desire to lose weight.

  “A Slim Peace” is a group founded in 2006 by Yael Luttwak, a 36-year-old American-Israeli filmmaker who grew up in Washington D.C.

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• October 4, 2008

  Change in U.S. Middle East Policy: A Religious Argument to Obama and McCain

  I just published this piece in the Washington Jewish Week. I wrote it as a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of Brit Tzedek Ve’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, a national American Jewish organization with over thirty thousand members and thirty eight chapters, which argues in Washington for a just solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict.

  It is settled: The election is about change. Sen. Barack Obama had made that his central motif all along, but now Sen. John McCain is onboard. Now that everyone is using the word “change,” it begs a question. The question is not “Who stands for change?” but rather, “Whose changes are going to really make a difference, and what are those changes?”

  One place where change is desperately needed is in the disastrous United States policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been in effect for the past eight years. It

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