Michael Phillip Lerner (February 7, 1943 – August 28, 2024) was an American political activist, the founder and editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.

As a political activist, Lerner is best known as the leader of the Seattle Seven, an anti-Vietnam protest group that was the subject of an investigation by the FBI and subsequent trial, where charges were later found to be unconstitutional.

Michael Lerner was born on February 7, 1943, and grew up in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey. In his youth, he attended Far Brook Country Day School, a private school that he characterized as having "a rich commitment to interdenominational Christianity". While he has written that he appreciated "the immense beauty and wisdom of the Christianity to which [he] was being exposed", he also felt religiously isolated, as the child of passionate Zionists who attended Hebrew school three times a week, while at the same time being heavily exposed to Christian-oriented cultural activities in school.

At his own request, in the 7th grade Lerner switched to a public school in the Weequahic neighborhood of Newark, where his peers were, in his estimation, 80% Jewish. He graduated from Weequahic High School in 1960. Lerner earned a BA degree from Columbia University, and in 1972 he earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1977 he received a PhD in Clinical/Social Psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley.

While at Berkeley, Lerner became a leader in the Berkeley student movement and the Free Speech Movement, chair of the Free Student Union, and chair from 1966 to 1968 of the Berkeley chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Lerner taught philosophy of law at San Francisco State University, and later took a job as an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. ^{[citation needed]}

Distressed over the disintegration of SDS in 1969, Lerner sought to re-organize the SDS into a new organization called the Seattle Liberation Front (SLF) on January 19, 1970. While SLF did not publicly endorse violence as a political tactic, SLF members including Roger Lippman, Michael Justesen, and Susan Stern were also members of the Weather Underground, which had bombing attacks as a central part of its political strategy. After the "Day After" demonstration SLF had called on February 17, 1970 (to protest the verdicts in the Chicago Seven trial) turned violent, Lerner and others were arrested and charged with inciting a riot.

Lerner and his co-defendants became known as the "Seattle Seven". During their trial, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued a public statement (repeated on radio and television) that described Lerner as "one of the most dangerous criminals in America", even though he had never engaged in any act of violence. Federal agents testifying at the trial later admitted to having played a major role instigating the violence and ensuing riot.