- cx-Wv Tikkun Responds to fesse Lemz?sc/a It is Ti'lalami's policy to print alterna- tive perspectives to ours. Hence we have printed Jesse Lemisch?s attack, even though it so grossly distorts our actual positions. Were it similarly mis- leading about anyone else except our~ selves, we would have reiected it on grounds of factual inaccuracy alone. In fact, not only do we not hold many of the positions Lemisch attributes to us, but we ?nd those positions morally distasteful. The Lemisch attack forces us to prove that we are morally OK and that we really have the ?correct line.? That very dynamic is precisely what destroyed the social movements of the 19603; it also ensures the con- tinued isolation of the left. Lemisch?s covert message is that ?no one is as morally pure as we on the sectarian left are." This message demands that potential allies ?prove themselves? before they can be ac- cepted as part of the left. This attitude makes people feel invalidated by the left at the very moment when the left should be embracing new friends. The right, meanwhile, has succeeded in con- vincing tens of millions of Americans that all liberals and progressives se- cretly hold the same contempt for them and their lives that Lemisch manifests in his wild assertion that the nuclear family creates dynamics ?which inevit- ably result in Because Lemisch?s article is a fresh embodiment of this self-destructive leftist approach, it deserves comment despite its unfair characterization of Taileleun?s views. Firsr, to the distortions. Given that liliekzm has an editorial board of severity people with widely different views on many issues, and given that we frequently print articles with which we partly or entirely disagree, it?s easy to string together a set of out-of- context quotes and misrepresent the positions of the magazine (which are stated in our editorial policy). Lemiseh has done that. l. Gays. Tr'kil?zm?s editorials have shown full support for the gay lib- eration movement. In our two-and-a- half years we have printed several articles dealing with gay struggles and with AIDS. \Ve have criticized the Jewish community for overt and 112 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3 covert discrimination against gays.- Lemisch?s insinuations to the contrary are outrageous. A typical example of Lemisch's taking something out of context is his quotes from Rabbi Bradley Artson's article on ?Judaism and Homosexuality" (Trie- ktm, Mar/Apr. 1988). Artson is a sup- porter of gay liberation, and in this article he takes on those who claim to base their opposition to gays on a careful reading of Jewish law (balakba). Artson?s point is that even if one takes lmlakba seriously, one can provide a defense of homosexuality wit/Jr}: that context of thought. We didn?t expect all our readers to buy Artson?s premises. But we were trying to do a service to those gays and lesbians who do take seriously the balak/n?c frame of refer- ence and need support from it. To use Our attempt to provide that support as proof of social conservatism is typical of the irresponsible way that Lemisch makes his argument. 2. Farrzz'ly. Tobey}: has made it clear that our support for family does not privilege one kind of family over Others. We are supportive of people?s attempts to build single-parent families and gay families, as well as more traditional family forms. Before starting the mag- azine, both Ttilzkun?s editor and pub- lisher worked for ten years with a wide variety of American working people. In our experience, most people use the word ?family? to refer to the only institution in their lives that has as its explicit mission and ideal the uncon- ditional provision of loving care to each of its members. The logic of the family ideal runs directly counter to the logic of the capitalist marketplace, where each person is valued only to the extent that he or she can produce something that someone else will buy. Consequently, when Americans are at- tracted to the ideal of the family, they are attracted to the norion of an insti? tution whose goal is to support long- term, committed, loving relationships. Most Americans don?t have to be told that their families don?t actually work in this way?too many people have been scarred by their family lives. This is precisely the point that wants to make when it urges liberals and progressives to adopt a progres- sive profamily agenda. Our point is not to glorify the actualities of family life in America, but to help people understand that it is often not their fault that the legitimate things they want in family life (loving support and rec0gnition) have nor been available. A progressive profamily agenda would be one that helps people understand that the dynamics of the competitive marketplace, the ethos of self-interest and ?look out for Number One,? and the stress and powerlessness that people experience in their workplaces all help undermine the building of loving families. Ironically, much that is associated with liberal culture has tended to rein- force self?blaming. for example, often encourages people to believe that if one can simply get one?s own head straight, everything else will work out. Thus, it tacitly supports the belief that if things are not working Out, one can blame only oneself. Even the struggle for equal opportunity has unintentionally had this consequence to the extent that it supports the notion that, apart from overt sexual or racist discrimination, the econOmic market- place is fair and what one achieves therein is a re?ection of individual merit. Besides raising consciousness about this dynamic of self?blaming, a pro- gressive profamily movement would also help people become aware of the ways they undermine the pos- sibility of having loving, committed relationships?by sexist assumptions and behaviorgby parents? invalidating children?s experience, by family mem- bers? being emotionally phony in order to preserve family stability, and by other emotionally destructive family routines. These dynamics are likely to appear in any institution in which people raised in this society seek emotional intimacy, as can be attested to by the experience of those in alternative families and those who sought to build communes in the 19605. It is silly to blame ?the family? for these dynamics; it is more sensible to incorporate techniques for overcoming these dynamics as part of a progressive profamily program. be right has been able to Speak to the pain people feel about the fail- ure of their family lives by talking ab0ut the external forces that it says undermine family: gays, feminism, and individual rights. The right has been able to get away with this position only because liberals and the left have ignored the family issue, or, worse, like Lemisch, have spoken about family life as though it were fundamentally reactionary, as though what people want from fam- ily life is the opportunity to sup- port hierarchy and patriarchy. The left could make major advances in popular consciousness if it were to help people see that hierarchy and patriarchy? manifested in the way work is orga- nized, the competitive marketplace, and the desrructive legacy of sexisr practices and in fact major obstacles to meaningful family life. To get that message across, the left should nor start by telling people that what they want is bad or evil. It isn?t. A progressive profamily program is the exact opposite of a glori?cation of the current realities of family life or a barking back to a mythical past in which families supposedly did better. ideas about the family are clear in the magazine. For Lemisch to mischaracterize them requires either a willful desire to misrepresent our views or a spotty reading of our articles. Con- sider some of the speci?cs connected to our vision of profamily legislation: paid maternity and paternity leaves; a well-funded nationwide network of community-controlled child-care cen- ters, as well as governmental funding of training programs for child?care workers; supplemental parental ?nan- cial support during the first seven years of a child?s life; a governmental man- date to ensure that workplaces provide additional sick days for children?s ill- nesses and extra leniency when tardi- ness can be shown to be related to family health emergencies. Can anyone with the least familiarity with American society say that this is a position of ?social conservatism?? 3. Judaism. has been in the forefront of critiquing sexist practices within Judaism and in encouraging and supporting the development of Jewish feminism. But to reduce the entirety of Judaism to its patriarchal or Oppressive aspects re?ects a fundamental lack of familiarity with Jewish texts. To do so is to offer an interpretation of Judaism in?uenced more by traditional Chris- tian slander than by a careful under- standing of 2,500 years of midrashic interpretation. It?s not that there is no basis for a critique of Judaism, but rather that those of us at nits? who are wrestling with the Jewish tradition have incor- porated that critique. Yet, in doing so, we insist on a more complicated and less rejecting interpretation of our long historical tradition?an understanding that places in historical context the various distortions that have emerged from that tradition. This, of course, is what leftists like Lemisch try to do with (/98er own problematic Madman, the twentieth-century history of leftist barbarism. They try to explain the context for the tens of millions of people murdered in the name of social- ism or communism in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe; the anti~ Semitism that manifested itself not only in the writings of Karl Marx but in the actual practice of the Communist move- ment in the past seventy years; and the sexism and homophobia that have been a recurrent theme in those societies where leftist regimes have taken power. People like Lemisch say that this op? pression should not be given too much weight, that there are underlying liber- atory themes in the left tradition that can be separated from the actual his- t0rical distortions, and that a new and better politics can be built around these themes. Yet when Tritium makes simi- lar arguments about Judaism, Lemisch wants to place us in the same category as every reactionary that ever misused our tradition. mam: does not argue that every? one must become religiousmours is not a missionary magazine. \X?hal we do argue, however, is that there are important truths and insights within the Jewish tradition from which secular Jews and non-Jews can learn and draw inspiration and guidance. Some of us at Tikkrm are strongly secular; some of us are committed to a religious vision. The majority of our board is composed of secular Jews, but it also has representatives from every major approach to Jewish spirituality?from feminist perspectives, gay and lesbian perspectives, bemoan-style Judaism, Reform, Reconsrrucrionist, Conserva- tive, and Orthodox Judaism. While alternative approaches to these ques- tions are often hotly debated in Tl?kkmr, and secular voices often aggressively critique religious perspectives, we seek to rcjecr the attitude that dominates so much of the secular left?that any- one with a religious sensibility must constantly be on the defensive against the kind of knee-jerk, know-norhing, antireligious prejudices that Lemisch?s article exempli?es. Yet no set of arguments can ever ade- quately offset the damage that Lemisch manages to cause by the tone and manner of his attack?the way it forces ?the other" (in this case us) into a defensive posture so that we are re- quired to prove that we are ?politically correcr.? Lemisch provides a classic example of what destroyed the New Left of the 19605. The verbal brutality of the left in the late 19605 was directed at every single person; every individual had to ?prove? that they had adequately transcended their elitism, their racism, their sexism, their self-involvement, their loyalty to anything that might be shown to be inadequately revolutionary (their country, their people, their family, their profession, their religion, their friends). Those leftists who weren?t baiting each other for not ?picking up the gun? with the Black Panthers or joining the Weathermen in revolu- tionary violence were baiting each other for not being adequately revolutionary on ?the social issues.? Perhaps Lemisch?s insistence on the fundamentally reactionary nature of the family will remind our readers of the days when his type of leftist insisted that monogamy was slavery, marriage a revolutionary sin, and heterosexual coupling fundamentally oppressive to gays and lesbians. In the course of a very few years (1969?1973), these left- i5ts managed to drive away the millions of people who were initially attracted to the liberatory ideals of a progressive politics. The left reverted to a tiny group of ideologues, happily distanced from the popularity the movement once enjoyed, embracing isolation and powerlessness as the badge of moral purity. As a result, the right has man- aged to undermine the credibility of all liberals,_feminists, and social change movements. One important reason that millions of Americans agree with the left on specific but still don?t trust it to govern is that they suspect that all liberals and progressives secretly hold them and their life choices (particularly their choice to try to build CURRENT DEBATE 113 a family and make a living in imperfect circumstances) in the same kind of contempt that Lemisch makes no effort to hide. For these very reasons, it is politically important for liberals and progressives to dissociate themselves from the style ofpolitics represented by Lemisch and others like him. Tritium wants no part in Lemisch?s kind of left. We have sought [so far unsuccessfully) to find a good word or phrase for our politicsa-a politics that emphasizes and validates the need of all people for mutual recognition and confirmation, love and ethically centered community; a politics that focuses its critique of the estab- lished order on the ways that this order frustrates the ful?llment of these needs; a politics that emphasizes compassion and caring; a politics that addresses our respOnsibility to preserve and protect our physical envirOnment while simul- taneously standing in awe and wonder at its grandeur; a politics that insists on the sanctity of human beings and the primacy of individual freedoms and human rights; a politics that repudiates the legacy of patriarchy and sexist prac? tices; a politics that opposes economic exploitation; a politics that seeks to reconstruct the world of work so that it promotes the development of our highest human capacities; and a politics that advocates a radical reconstruction and democratization of our economic and political sysrems based on prin- ciples that help to maximize our shared humanity, deveIOp our ethical sensi- tivities, and undermine the coercive power of entrenched elites. This is hardly a conservative politicswbut if it does not ?t as part of the left, so much the worse for such a left. All the more reason why we who seek to heal, repair, and transform the world need to build a very different kind of social change movement. l3 LETTERS (Continued from p. 7) analyze bad at all but instead should see its frequent success as another expression of people?s desire for connectedness. But thenbad therapists?) It was not my intention, nor am I (or anyone else) able, to propose some radically new vision ofhow to combine relief, restructuring, and social change. As for Rabbi Stone?s claim that ACAs don?t blame their ?dysfunctional families? or emphasize ?taking care of themselves first," I can only say that their books explicitly say these things over and over, and the dozens of friends, students, and patients that I?ve talked to who are involved in the movement say likewise. And the ?society,? within which they aim to funcrion better, increasingly celebrates these very qualities. SOVIET JEWRY To the Editor: Robert Cullen has written a compel- ling argument for altering American policy on Soviet emigration. He has noted some of the recent changes that have resulted in the USSR as a result of penetrated and glamost, including those relating to travel and emigration, and he argues in favor of a "kinder and gentler? approach toward the Soviet Union as a reward for these changes. Essentially, the soft approach should consist of a more liberal trade policy and a benevolent attitude that would be expressed by a change in refugee 114 TIKKUN VOL. 4, NO. 3 status for Soviet Jews because there is no longer a unilateral presumption of persecution and suffering in the way that there is in Central America and Southeast Asia. To be sure, any and all changes in the Soviet Union should be acknowledged and even rewarded by the US. and theJewish community. To imply, however, that the Iron Curtain is on the verge of crumbling seems a bit farfetched. More important, Cullen has errone- ously assumed that the question of how the US. should respond to change in the USSR is identical to the ques- tion of how the Jewish community should respond. He has based his as sumption on the notion that ?Jackson- Vanik? has the same meaning for the US. as it has for theJewish community. For the U.S., Jackson-Vanik is a tactic within a larger geopolitical framework of East-West relationships. For the Jewish community, trade policy and Jackson-Vanik serve as a convenient and substantive tool in its arsenal of po- litical leverage to liberate Soviet Jews. The plight of Soviet Jewry is more than a human rights issue for theJewish community. The effort to liberate Soviet Jews is a ?redemptive? movement. The mission, to paraphrase an eminent Jewish communal leader, is to save a signi?cant community from going down the memory hole of history and to enacr the vital mitzvah of the redemption of captives. Twentieth-century Jewry has witnessed the devastation of one-third of the world?s Jewish population in the Holocaust during World War II. It has seen Jews die defending the newly created State of Israel, and there is great fear that more Jews will be lost to assimilation and, in the case of the Soviet Union, cultural genocide. The backdrop of one thousand years of popular, state-sanctioned anti-Semitism coupled with the reality of a seventy- year spiritual wasteland underlies the fundamental urgency of the movement to free Soviet Jews. Until the Yom Kippur War in 1973, more than 90 percent of the Jews who emigrated from the USSR went to Israel. Each year since then, greater numbers have chosen to go to countries other than Israel, mainly the US. Now more than 90 percent choose the US. It seems ckutzpadi? for American Jews to demand that others do what they won't do (move to Israel) and as a consequence restrict the free movement of Soviet Jews . It is a sad commentary if the American Jewish community be- lieves that Soviet Jews will be?105t? to the Jewish community if they come to America just because we offer greater economic opportunity and perhaps a more peaceful existence. We do believe that every effort should be made to en- courage alz'ya/J, but if Soviet Jews would rather come to America, we should not consider it a ?loss? to the Jewish people. The fact of the matter is that Soviet Jews are choosing America and may choose not to leave the USSR if that choice is all but eliminated. The American Jewish community must rise to the challenge of absorption and respond. Perhaps this new influx will spur our community toward self- examination so that we can not only find a solution to help these new immi- grants identify, but also create innova- tive ways to strengthen our own Jewish identities. Soviet Jewish emigration could be for us what Eastern European Jewish emigration was for America in