Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow is a marxist historian and political activist who is now a rabbi within the Jewish Renewal movement. He originally received a doctorate in politics. He said that he was provoked to become Jewishly involved at the time of the riots in Washington DC following the murder of Dr Martin Luther King - riots which coincided with the beginning of the Passover Seder. He has been involved with Jewish Renewal since 1969, and is a "Pathfinder" of ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. He founded and directs The Shalom Center, an organization which acts to "protect and heal the earth" in ways grounded in Jewish thought and practice.
He worked for a period as the the legislative assistant to Congressman Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin. [1] Concurrently he was a senior staff member at the Peace Research Institute from 1961 until 1963 when he merged it with theInstitute For Policy Studies. He joined Richard Barnet and Marcus G. Raskin the founders of the self described "radical think-tank" the Institute For Policy Studies, and rose to prominance as one of its most active leaders. [2]. He was an active member of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, the Council for a Livable World and was a contributing editor to the revolutionairy-left periodical Ramparts Magazine. He was active in the establishment of the National Conference for New Politics. He was twice arrested in the late 1960s for protesting without a licence.
Along with Staughton Lynd, he was the leader of a radical group within the American Historical Association that in 1969 failed to pass motions calling for a withdrawal from Vietnam and an end to what they termed the "repression" of the Black Panther movement. The motions were opposed by H. Stuart Hughes and Marxist historian Eugene Genovese who had himself voiced his support for the Vietcong on the grounds that such pronouncements amounted to a "totalitarian threat to the profession". [3]
Waskow is author of several books, among them Godwrestling (1978), Seasons of Our Joy (1982) and Down-to-Earth Judaism (1995). He was one of the creators of the Freedom Seder in 1969, and founded and edits the journal New Menorah. Waskow is a regular contributor to the Philadelphia Jewish Voice. Waskow has taught (last time in 1990) at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and in the religion departments at several American universities. He also teaches at Elat Chayyim, the transdenominational Jewish retreat center in the Catskills.
Waskow has been a strong critic of the Second Iraq War and has supported the positions of Cindy Sheehan. [4] He is also a defender of Hugo Chavez, arguing that his comments ". . .some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here . . .took the world's riches for themselves. . ." could not be refering to Jews arguing "I know of no one who accuses the Jews of fighting against Bolivar". [5]
Waskow has argued that Judaism contains elements of Marxism, pointing to the implications of the Jubilee year for the ownership of land. [6]
Bibliography
These Holy Sparks: The Rebirth of the Jewish People, Arthur Waskow