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Minutes for Tikkun planning meeting (I guess that’s what it was) August 17th

Present: Edie, Lydia, Terry, Harvey, Anne, Peter  
Not Present: Everyone else

We started with a go round of how we had spent our summers. Of note was Anne’s interaction with a Palestinian Peace Center who are interested in working with us. Edie let us know that “My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding” the musical based on Jean and Diana’s relationship, as sung about by their son, will be playing at Pantages this fall, and then proceed on to Broadway, insh’allah,

Proposals for future actions included
* Bringing Amira Hass to speak in Toronto
* Writing a letter to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.
* Book Clubs/ Discussion Groups

In the ensuing discussion, there was a general agreement that what we most uniquely bring to healing the world is (the range of) our perspectives on Israel/Palestine. Peter’s quote from Susan Nathan was met with approval “I've changed how I present (my argument): I'm far less aggressive but at the same time I'm far more dangerous...I have a far better view of what's going on..that's the only way you can get Jews to take on board what's happening here...a continuous barrage of criticism will not make the changes we need. I'm very fiercely critical but I'm also very compassionate” We agreed that sharing and deepening our own discussions will lead to our doing the right actions, and that we need to have a balance between the internal and external.

There was a general agreement (spearheaded by Terry’s spirited defense of “Open Space Technology”) that what we do needs to create space for creative participation by others. Some of the characteristics that we agreed our action will have are that it is not a political debate, that it allows people to engage, that it comes out of our investigating ideas/ healing ourselves, and that it involves spirit as well as action. In discussing the perennial issue of what do we have energy to do, we recognized that the question “What are you willing to give to this project?” is really saying “What are you passionate about?”

Tuesday Sept 15th, 7:30, (at Peter’s) is the next meeting. Go write it down. We all have two assignments:
* Bring an idea you’re passionate about and talk about it for a maximum of 5 minutes
* Think about the actions Tikkun has done and look for the “implicate order” or the deep structure that has made these successful (or not, of course)

Memory jog for oldies: history for newbies: Tikkun’s Action History
* We held Writing Towards Peace, July 09. 25 people, creative writing evening
* We held Poetry for Peace, with the Transformative Learning Centre and raised over $500 for Al-Zaytoum community in Gaza.
* We wrote and read "The Israel Stories" a series of personal narratives tracing the evolution of our different relationships to Israel. We both told these live in groups and created podcasts which drew 1000s of listeners worldwide
* We appeared on CBC's program, "The Big Picture with Avi Lewis", presenting a pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian point of view
* We co-sponsored Rabbi Michael Lerner's talk in Toronto in April 2006.
* We created a wall of transformation, representing the change from Darkness to Light, as part of the 2005 Kensington Market's Winter Solstice Festival.
* We staged an intervention at a Stephen Harper campaign stop
* We hosted “Building Bridges”, a two-day conference on Spiritual Politics and Reconciliation with Rabbi Michael Lerner, the founder of the Tikkun Community.
*We organized a 10,000 Kites event in support of a larger initiative in Israel/Palestine.
* We wrote and staged a play Two Brothers near Jerusalem at the Ashkenaz festival
* We staged a play for “An Evening of Engagement”, a forum for dialogue between Arabs, Israelis, Jews, and Muslims.
* We participated in the Toronto Social Forum, offering a workshop “From Waste to Wisdom”.
* We have participated in demonstrations in opposition to the war in Iraq.
* We have maintained a website and put out a weekly newsletter for six years.