Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Rabbi and Editor Michael Lerner’s Home Found Vandalized

The home of Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the left-wing Jewish magazine Tikkun, was vandalized sometime during the night of Sunday, May 2.

According to Berkeley police, fliers attacking Lerner for supporting “terrorism” and “Islamo-fascism” were glued to Lerner’s door, along with a cartoon of Lerner and South African jurist Richard Goldstone, author of the United Nations sponsored Goldstone Report on the 2008–2009 Gaza conflict. In the cartoon, Lerner is depicted telling Goldstone, “Any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine.”

This cartoon depicting caricatures of Judge Richard Goldstone and Rabbi Michael Lerner was glued to the front gate of Lerner?s home.

Goldstone’s report, which has elicited intense criticism in much of the Jewish community, found that Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during the conflict.

Tikkun’s managing editor, Dave Belden, said that the attack comes on the heels of a strong increase in “hate mail from Jewish right-wingers” related to Lerner’s recent defense of Goldstone. On April 26, Lerner announced that Tikkun would confer its 25th annual ethics award to the South African next year.

In a posting on the Tikkun website to the journal’s readers, Lerner vowed that he would “not be scared into silence” by the attack.

Contact Jo Ellen Green Kaiser at [email protected]

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.