Portland, OR – April 24, 2007 – The City Repair Project is proud to welcome Rabbi Michael Lerner as it’s featured speaker for the night of May 24, 2007, at 8:00 p.m. Michael Lerner will speak on the subject of development of a spiritual democracy and how it is rooted in local community as part of The City Repair Project’s 7th Annual Village Building Convergence.

In the words of Michael Paley, “Michael Lerner is America’s preeminent liberal Jewish intellectual.” Rabbi Michael Lerner is founded Tikkun magazine in 1986. The title of the magazine comes from the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam which means “to repair or renew the world”. Recognized by the Utne Reader in 2006 for “Best Spiritual Coverage”, Tikkun analyzes American and Israeli culture, politics, religion and history from a leftlist-progressive Judaism viewpoint, and provides commentary about Israeli politics and Jewish life in North America. Tikkun’s creation was influenced by the political concerns of the 1960s civil rights movement and 1970s multiculturalist ideology. Rabbi Lerner is also well known for taking the secular Left to task for neglecting the spiritual hunger of people and not having a “politics of meaning”, which may be one reason why the religious right has experienced it’s recent success in America. In 2006, Rabbi Lerner published “The Left Hand of God: Taking Our Country Back from the Religious Right.”

Each year, the VBC is held to promote human-scale community action. Over 30 private sites, institutions, schools, and neighborhoods will create community-based projects for community improvement, which will be implemented during the Village Building Convergence. This year’s Village Building Convergence will include feature projects ranging from building ecoroofs to garden construction in locations in all quadrants of the city. In addition to the site projects, the VBC includes workshops, speakers, live music, and entertainment. A full effort will be made to recycle all materials, promote bicycle riding to sites, and create a zero waste zone at the evening event site.

The City Repair Project is an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live. The City Repair Project facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world. The Village Building Convergence is primarily planned, designed, organized, built and run by volunteers, and on a minimal budget. We are honored to share this framework for running a large, non-corporate, ecologically-sustainable community event with other organizations in Portland and beyond.

Please help us keep this event fabulously community-supported by volunteering or donating. For additional information on volunteering, please contact Maralena Murphy at 617-406-8299 (cell) or vbcvolunteer@cityrepair.org. For general inquiries, please contact Meghan Crane at 301-580-3554 or vbcpublicity@cityrepair.org.

2007 Village Building Convergence Featured Speakers and Entertainers