Best Contemporary Jewish Writing

Michael Lerner is the editor of TIKKUN magazine and rabbi of the neo-Hasidic Beyt Tikkun Jewish Renewal synagogue in San Francisco. His most recent book, Spirit Matters: Global Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul, was selected as "one of the most significant books of 2000" by the Los Angeles Times Book Review and won a PEN award. His previous writings include Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin, a dialogue with Cornel West, and Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (described by Conservative Judaism journal as "stunning, miraculous and faith-renewing"). Rabbi Lerner, designated by Utne Reader as one of America's 100 Most Important Visionaries, has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and Newsweek. He holds Ph.D.s in philosophy and clinical psychology.

• Introduction: Jewish Writing and Healing the World xiii The Many Identities of a Jew To Jewishness 3The Melting Pot and Beyond: Jews and the Politics of American Identity 8Poems: Reversion and What Kind of Times Are These 15Justify My Love 17Ten Ways to Recognize a Sephardic 'Jew-ess' 29Redemption on East Tremont: The kindness of Christians and a seder's matzah helps the daughter of Mendel Beilis fix the old fears 36News About Jews 40 Gay and Orthodox 42Slipping the Punch 55The Night Game 70From The Roots of a Public Life 73From And What Is My Lifespan? 79Stories: Grandmother Eve, Consecrating the Ordinary, Blessing, and The Reward 80The Legacy: A Parable About History and Bobe-mayses, Barszcz, and Borscht and the Future of the Jewish Past 86Reclaiming the Spirit in Judaism Nishmat 95Starting on My Spiritual Path 97On Renewing God 103 Eternity Utters a Day 113A Kabbalah for the Environmental Age 115Is God in Trees? 127 The Emergence of Eco-Judaism 134A Theology of Illness and Healing 145Death and What's Next 150Eros and the Ninth of Av 152From The Book of Jewish Values 155Poems: Yom Kippur Sonnet and Science Psalm 162Rereading Sacred Texts of Our Tradition From And Peace and Justice Shall Kiss 169From Imagining the Birth of a Nation 186From The Red Tent 193From The Bible and You, the Bible and You and Other Midrashim 199Aaron's God--and Ours: A Yom Kippur Reflection 200Our (Meaning Women's) Book-of-Esther Problem 205Living in the Shadows of the Holocaust Cattle Car Complex 213Force Fields 221 The Sanctuary 228The Trivialization of Tragedy 230Hereditary Victimhood: The Holocaust's Life as a Ghost 241The Meaning of the Holocaust: Social Alienation and the Infliction of Human Suffering 252Israel in Conflict The New Historiography: Israel Confronts Its Past 265Land for What? 281Occupation and Antisemitism 284A Novelist's Optimism: Reclaiming the Jewish Tradition 297From Booking Passage 300Poems: From In My Life, On My Life; Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Why Jerusalem?; and The Jewish Time Bomb 323Hovering at a Low Altitude 326The Pleasure of Jewish Culture Making Judaism Cool 331Old Man 339Poems: When You Come to Sleep with Me, Come Like My Father and Hebrew 342Esther and Yochanan 346The Twenty-seventh Man 352Against Logic 367The Healing Power of Jewish Stories 371The Complex Fate of the Jewish American Writer 375Bellow at 85, Roth at 67 392Jewish Writing and the Spiritual Journey: A Speculative Journey 409The One Hundred Best Contemporary Jewish Books 417The Editor 423The Contributors 425Credits 431