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Social Justice
Sunbeams
November 1997Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
On Regret
Of all the things Greenfeld said, the word that resonates most when I ponder the question of regret is kittenness. “It’s hard when they lose their kittenness,” he said.
December 1996Get A Job
Why Welfare Reform Is An Attack On All Women
What is being proposed under the title “welfare reform” is cuts in programs for the poorest and most vulnerable members of American society: nutritional programs and Medicaid programs and housing programs and programs for the aged, impoverished, and disabled. But the program that is most targeted for reform is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a program for poor mothers and their children. Men can get benefits, too, but the overwhelming majority of parents on AFDC are women, about five million of them, with about nine million children.
September 1996Silas
Silas works at a social-service agency. He sits inside a cubicle, behind a metal desk with a simulated-wood surface. One by one, people — mostly old women, but some old men, too — come and sit on a metal folding chair across the desk from Silas, where they weep and whine and struggle to maintain their dignity and finally grow vexed and demand their Social Security checks.
September 1996Sunbeams
March 1996The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It’s inflammatory.
On Racism And Nonviolence
An Interview With Arun Gandhi
Peace without nonviolence is impractical. Some people think, if there is no war, we have peace. But, in effect, no society is at peace at the moment. In the United States, there is street violence. This is not peace at all. No country has ever made an attempt to achieve a thoroughly peaceful society.
June 1995Sunbeams
January 1995I did not go to the Maggid of Mezeritch to learn Torah from him, but to watch him tie his boot laces.
Sunbeams
October 1993You are sitting on the earth, and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth. You are there — fully, personally, genuinely.
