Rabbi Michael Lerner’s home vandalized again

The northern California home of Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the progressive Tikkun magazine, was vandalized for the fourth time in the last year.

In an e-mail sent to Tikkun supporters, Lerner said that on Tuesday evening, two black-hooded men pasted signs on the outside of his house and garage saying that “Palestine is an Arab fantasy.” The statement was a reference to Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who called the Palestinians an “invented” people.

Earlier in the day, Lerner had appeared on a local National Public Radio affiliate to discuss his book “Embracing Israel/Palestine” and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“It seems obvious to me that the attack, while responding to the NPR interview with me this morning, is part of the same attempt to terrorize me and my family as the past three assaults,” Lerner wrote in his e-mail. “As the police made clear to us the last time, the goal is not to destroy property as much as to remind us that they know where we live, and that we are not safe.

“Needless to say, in a world where Israeli right-wingers this past week burned a mosque and assaulted an IDF (Israeli army) post for allegedly being too pro-Arab, there is no way to be sure that all these warning shots at me are only meant to scare and do not suggest that worse may be coming if my book gets more attention.”

Lerner said that he would not let the incident intimidate him.