
The Shalom Report
Below you will find the latest mailings of The Shalom Report, our regular newsletter. To receive The Shalom Report directly in your inbox, click here.
Help get out the pro-Earth, pro-People vote!
The Shalom Center joins with the Jewish Climate Action Network of Massachusetts to Turn Out the Pro-Earth, Pro-People Vote, beginning properly enough in high-stakes Pennsylvania on Pesach!
Liberating Your Passover Seder
R’ Arthur writes, “We have done what we could to send biblical passages, Palestinian poetry, etc., to help in creating a Truthful Seder [this year]. We also invite you to buy Liberating Your Passover Seder to heal and hearten your heart.”
Notes toward a Passover Haggadah for the Bloodshed Crisis of 2024
R’ Arthur shares “Notes toward a Haggadah” for this season, not the haggadah itself — with an invititation to add or subtract and to let us know what emerges.
Passover in a Time of Massive Bloodshed
How can we celebrate in the face of so much death and so much trauma amongst the living? The biblical tradition offers us a way.
Two Pesach Sedarim for This Year
April 22 is the night of the first Seder. The day before, April 22, is Earth Day. We are making available two possible Sedarim. The first one is this, from a couple of years ago, called Earth & Justice Freedom-Seder.
Passover — This Year??
R’ Arthur explores the differences between Purim and Passover, with the question in mind: How should we celebrate Passover this year?
Remember clearly, Remember faintly, Don't forget!
Dvarim (Deuteronomy) 25: 17-19 (to be read specially on the Shabbat before Purim, called Shabbat Zachor [Shabbat “Remember”]
Letters back and forth on "There is no 'Jewish' state"
In “From the Desk of Rabbi Arthur Waskow”, R’ Arthur shares some responses, and his own answers, to his earlier essay, There Is No “Jewish” State.
We’ll erect a mourning tent…
We are all — all of us whose hearts are open and tender enough to grieve both Palestinians and Israelis — in a state of prolonged and bone-deep grief. This Thursday, on Ta’anit Esther, you are all invited to mourn with us. Wherever you are, on your own, and for those of you in the Bay Area, in person, at our Tent of Mourning.
RESCHEDULED! — For Times Such as These Seasons of Our Joy
We are happy to announce that our previously postponed event has been rescheduled! Join us on Sunday, May 5th at 7pm ET (4pm PT).
US Action NOW for Palestine-Israel Peace
Shalom Center Senior Fellow Robert Brand writes, “The current worsening crisis in Gaza and increasingly on the West Bank creates a fierce urgency for recognition of the state of Palestine to be done now.”
Chapter 9 Project is here!
This Purim, in this moment in history, with war raging in Israel and Gaza, The Shalom Center invited dear writers and seekers to reimagine Chapter 9 of Megillat Esther as an exercise in dreaming new worlds, new responses, and new endings into existence.
There Is No “Jewish” State
In a note “From the Desk of Rabbi Arthur Waskow”, R’ Arthur writes, “The State” is in many ways not acting Jewishly or democratically to those it governs.
The Chapter 9 Project: Sneak Preview & Release Date
We have invited a group of insightful writers and dreamers to each rewrite Chapter 9, and will compile these original tellings into a digital collection. Today we share one of those Chapter 9 rewrites as a taste of the kind of power and depth to be found in the full collection.
Self-Immolator Protests Gaza Bloodshed
R’ Arthur writes: “My emotions were stirred in contradictory directions, as yours may have been when you heard the news. I decided to divide them up according to the Four Worlds of Jewish mysticism.”
*POSTPONED* — For Times Such As These (orig. Thurs 2/29)
In case you were still hoping to register for tonight's book talk program, we regret to inform you that we must postpone the event. We look forward to rescheduling the program at a time when our speakers and moderator can all fully participate. We will share more details when we have them.
Rabbi Ellen Bernstein: Baruch Eyl Rachamim v’Emet
R’Arthur on the passing of Rabbi Ellen Bernstein
Book event: For Times Such as These
R’ Arthur will join the authors of the new book For Times Such As These, inspired in part by Seasons of Our Joy, in a conversation about the radical power of Jewish holidays to help transform the world.
Mourners’ Kaddish In A Time of War and Violence
So long as the war between the two families of Abraham continues, we might want to make a practice that on one occasion each shabbat, we add this special Mourners' Kaddish.
NCJW Calls Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF Ruling an Affront to Religious Freedom
Read the statement released by National Council of Jewish Women CEO Sheila Katz, in response to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that declared frozen embryos to be children and that the discarding of frozen embryos constitutes the wrongful death of a minor.