Welcome to benkamin.com
the interactive web site for author, journalist, and spiritualist
Rabbi Ben Kamin

Op-ed Contributor

After over thirty years in high-profile and senior synagogue and agency positions, the publication of several books and hundreds of spiritually and community-based Op-ed and magazine pieces, countless electronic and print media interviews about his multicultural and religiously inclusive convictions, Rabbi Ben Kamin’s seventh book has now been published.  The “launch” of NOTHING LIKE SUNSHINE: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination took place in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4, 2010:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rabbi Ben Kamin launched his latest book as keynote speaker at National Civil Rights Museum

Speech took place in Memphis as part of annual commemoration of Martin Luther King on April 4, 2010

Barbara Andrews, director of education at the National Civil Rights Museum / Lorraine Motel announced that Ben Kamin's Keynote Address at the annual convocation on the April 4th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The museum’s publication, The Movement declared that Kamin “will offer perspectives from his new book, NOTHING LIKE SUNSHINE: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination.” [Michigan State Univ. Press]

The book, Kamin’s seventh, is a chronicle of his experiences at Cincinnati's churning Woodward High School in the 1960s, his troubled friendship with a black classmate, and how the legacy of MLK led to their eventual reunion almost forty years later. It is ultimately a paean to his spiritual mentor, M.L. King.

Ben Kamin is a nationally known rabbi, author, spirituality columnist, interfaith specialist, lecturer, Op-ed contributor to The New York Times and many other publications. Kamin is also a scholar on the life and values of Dr. King. T George Harris, the former bureau chief of TIME-LIFE, has said about Nothing Like Sunshine: “No single writer living in America can communicate the black-white story more evocatively than Ben Kamin.”

The National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., chronicles key episodes of the American civil rights movement and the legacy of this movement to inspire participation in civil and human rights efforts globally, through its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs.

Having been quoted by Ann Landers, been cited by Congressman Louis Stokes, former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (“Ben Kamin can talk to anybody about anything)”, described by Psychology Today founder T. George Harris as “the most unique and clear voice in America for worldly spiritualism,” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as “one of the key religious spokesmen around”, and by CNN legal correspondent Avery Friedman as “America’s rabbi,” Ben Kamin is now putting his theology, and his understanding of scripture as an “overwhelmingly human song to creation“ into print via the King saga. This will be his seventh book.


WORKING WITH THE NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM, Ben Kamin is now writing his newest work:
 
ROOM 306
The National Story of the Lorraine Motel
 
Endorsed by Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King and the International Hunt For His Assassin, this oral history of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis is the first work of its kind.  Among those profiled in the book will be Rev. Billy Kyles, who stood next to King at the moment of the assassination; journalist Earl Caldwell, the only reporter on the scene; playwright Katori Hall; legendary civil rights worker and lyricist Dorothy Cotton; and Martin Luther King III.

Rabbi Ben Kamin, the founder of Reconciliation: The Synagogue Without Walls, is a scholar of civil rights who has written extensively about Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in countless articles and in previous books such as Thinking Passover (Dutton, 1997) and the current  Nothing Like Sunshine: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination (Michigan State University Press, 2010). The latter is also being also being pitched as a feature motion picture by Enduring Freedom Productions. Meanwhile, Ben is writing the screenplay for the cinematic realization of his 2007 novel, Remora, also for Enduring Freedom Productions.