Just before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the National Library of Israel has unveiled a timely letter from its Martin Buber Archive. In 1965 Buber, just before his death, joined a group of Hebrew University professors in writing to President Lyndon B. Johnson to emphasize the importance of the end of King’s brief incarceration following…
I will never forget the first time someone called me a racist. In the fourth grade, I got into a pushing match in the cafeteria with Umar, an African-American classmate, the cause of which I can no longer remember. The two of us were sent to the principal’s office, and when asked why he hit…
(JTA) — Rabbi Saul Leeman, a longtime leader of Conservative congregations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and a civil rights activist who marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, has died at 100. Leeman, who served the Cranston Jewish Center on Rhode Island and later Temple Shalom in Medford, Massachusetts, died April 5. The Providence Journal…
“An unjust law is not a law,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from his Birmingham, Alabama, jail cell. The letter is well known – less so the fact that King was writing to fellow church leaders who disapproved of his breaking the law in the name of civil rights. I was saddened to…
On February 5, 2017 the Times of Israel published a piece discussing an upcoming “Stars of the NFL trip” to Israel, organized apparently by Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, to include a number of NFL stars, among them, Michael Bennett, a star defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks. Shortly after the publication of this article, the…
A woman in Michigan came home last week to find a swastika painted on her door. Instead of despairing, she decided to fight back – with love and magic lifted from the pages of a beloved Harry Potter book. Last week, Erin Zettle posted a public message on Facebook describing the hateful attack. “There was…
In 1965, Martin Luther King told photographer James “Spider” Martin, “we could have marched, we could have protested forever, but if it weren’t for guys like you, it would have been for nothing. The whole world saw your pictures. That’s why the Voting Rights Act passed.” This is, of course, a case of overstated humility,…
The plans for Martin Luther King Jr.’s pilgrimage were ambitious. King was slated to lead thousands of pilgrims to the Holy Land, where he would preach on the Mount of Olives and at a specially constructed amphitheater on the Sea of Galilee. He would preside over a series of “multi-racial interfaith services” at the region’s…
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