ABSTRACT
Michael Lerner is an American reform rabbi originally from New Jersey, and is known especially as the chief editor of the Jewish critical magazine Tikkun (Tikkun: A Bimonthly Jewish Critique of Politics, Culture and Society). In his youth he was a student of Abraham Yehoshua Heschel and a student activist. He studied philosophy, and later taught a number of related disciplines. He received rabbinic ordination in 1995. He advocates a ‘positive Judaism’, conciliatory inter-religious attitudes and a peaceful solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and he criticizes some radically pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States. His conciliatory and non-conformist attitudes have many followers, but also harsh critics from different sides of Jewish and non-Jewish society. He is the author of Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (1994), The Politics of Meaning (1997) and The Left Hand of God: Taking Our Country Back (2006).
