Scotland

Church agrees to tone down anti-Israel report

Marcus Dysch — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:20:44 +0100

A “truly hurtful” report about Israel is to be rewritten in an attempt to diffuse a row between the Church of Scotland and the Jewish community.

The discussion document compiled by the Church’s church and society council provoked outrage after apparently suggesting that Jewish claims to the land of Israel could be invalidated by the treatment of Palestinians.

Church leaders will vote on whether to adopt the 5,000-word report as policy at its annual general assembly this weekend.

But at a meeting in Edinburgh with a delegation of Jewish community leaders, representatives of the church and society council agreed to tone down the language in the document.

In a joint statement following the meeting, the Jewish groups — which included the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, the Board of Deputies, Movement for Reform Judaism and Rabbis for Human Rights — and the Church said an agreement had been reached for parts of the report to be changed.

“We agreed that the drafting of the report had given cause for concern and misunderstanding of [the Church’s] position, and requires a new introduction to set the context for the report and give clarity about some of the language used,” the statement said.

The alterations will make clear the Church’s “long-held position of the right of Israel to exist” and will condemn “all things that create a culture of antisemitism”.

Board vice-president Jonathan Arkush said: “It was a good meeting with a positive outcome. We set out our deep concerns about the report and we were listened to. The joint statement is the beginning of what we hope will be a much better process of dialogue and understanding.”

The report’s contents had provoked strong criticism from interfaith groups and threatened to cause a breakdown in relations on a par with the fall-out from the Methodist Church boycott of Israel in 2010, which saw the Board cut-off all links with Methodist leaders.

Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub, said the report “not only plays into extremist political positions, but negates and belittles the deeply held Jewish attachment to the land of Israel in a way which is truly hurtful”.

He added that if it was adopted by the Church’s general assembly, it would be a “significant step backwards for the forces of tolerance and peace”.

Church agrees to tone down anti-Israel report

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:45:26 +0100

A “truly hurtful” report about Israel is to be rewritten in an attempt to diffuse a row between the Church of Scotland and the Jewish community.

Church leaders will vote on whether to adopt the 5,000-word report as policy at its annual general assembly this weekend.

But at a meeting in Edinburgh with a delegation of Jewish community leaders, representatives of the church and society council agreed to tone down the language in the document.

The alterations will make clear the Church’s “long-held position of the right of Israel to exist” and will condemn “all things that create a culture of antisemitism”.

He added that if it was adopted by the Church’s general assembly, it would be a “significant step backwards for the forces of tolerance and peace”.

This church report on Israel sets the clock back 70 years

Patrick Morrow — Sun, 12 May 2013 10:11:28 +0100

'A slap in the face to the Jewish community" is how Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies, responded to the report, The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the "promised land". This document comes from the Church of Scotland's church and society council, and is to be debated by the general assembly next week. As a Christian (an Anglican priest), I can sympathise. There are several contenders for its most contentious phrase. But the sharpest must be the rhetorical question: "Would the Jewish people today have a fairer claim to the land if they dealt justly with the Palestinians?"

So, has Jewish-Christian dialogue reached the end of the line, following the recent unhappiness with the Methodist Church and the Church of England? Or is there still a case for the differing parties to meet, talk, listen, and arrive at - not necessarily agreement (for why should we agree?) - but a better quality of disagreement? I have to believe the latter.

What of the substance of the report? The church and society council is clearly committed to work for justice. Its other reports are on human rights, and poverty. But when it comes to Israel, its attention slips from the modern realities.

Here are words absent from the report: Herzl, secular, Knesset, Fatah, Hamas.These absences are telling: the paper does not seriously engage with contemporary Judaism, religious or secular, or contemporary Israeli politics. Islam and Islamophobia are both mentioned only once. So it is not that the contemporary Palestinian reality is more truthfully encountered. A radical political-theological critique of Israel would have been one thing, if still controversial. But the paper barely addresses the politics. So what is really going on?

The bulk of the report discusses how the Hebrew Bible and New Testament treat "the land". God's promise of the land to Abraham's descendants is held to be "literal" and "unconditional". Devastatingly wrongly, based on little more than one quote from David Ben-Gurion, the report determines: "This is the position of Zionism".

The second biblical idea is a land held in trust: God offers the land on condition that the inhabitants act justly, as the prophets insist. It is in this context that the question of the "fairness" of the Jewish claim today is raised. But even this conditional offer is held to be problematic. Drawing on the US Jewish critic of Zionism, Mark Braverman, the report finds the root problem to be Jewish notions of "separateness, vulnerability and specialness". Bluntly, the argument is not only that Zionism is bad, but so is the conviction that "the Jewish people are serving God's special purpose". It is shocking to read such a cavalier undermining of mainstream Judaism. Yet if the idea of a special vocation from God is unacceptable, orthodox Christianity is itself stymied.

The third idea is of a land with a universal mission. Evidence for this is supposedly found in the book of Jonah, which brings the message of God's universal care, from "a time when Jewish people were turning inwards". But is it really Jesus who putatively sets things right, offering "a radical critique of Jewish specialness and exclusivism"?

So the report's basis is a good number of the tropes of Christian supersessionism. According to this Christian triumphalism, the Hebrew Bible can be portrayed as bad (promoting Zionism), or as useful preparation (the warnings of the prophets); either way, it is exclusivist and it takes the great universaliser - Jesus - to heal. In this frame, it is unsurprising that the newer "problem" of the "ethno-national" state of Israel can apparently be solved only by the universalism of Christianity. Bluntly, it is as if there had been no Jewish-Christian dialogue since the Second World War.

But there has. Other Christians' claims are not negated by this rather breathless document. The Vatican has said of the Jewish attachment to the land: "Christians are invited to understand this religious attachment ,which finds its roots in biblical tradition, without however making their own any particular religious interpretation of this relationship." We can honour a profound theology of the land, even though it is not ours.

The most generous reading of the report is that it is struggling to say something like this: as Christians we are not compelled to have a Christian theology of the land. The real protagonist in sight is the archetypal "Christian Zionist". In any event, my prayer is that the general assembly will have the courage to listen. The dialogue needs their more-considered input.

A damaging document

Oliver Kamm — Sun, 12 May 2013 09:46:53 +0100

'All men," wrote Reinhold Niebuhr, the great Protestant ethicist, "are naturally inclined to obscure the
morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity. This is why religion is more frequently a source of confusion than of light in the political realm."

Niebuhr was a steadfast friend of Israel. His warnings about the temptations of deploying religion in political argument are confirmed by a document arguing a very different position.

As revealed in the JC last week, the Church of Scotland is considering a report from its "church and society council" that challenges the Jewish national claim to the land of Israel. The Church stresses defensively that the paper (tellingly entitled The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the "promised land") has yet to be debated by its general assembly.

The damage has been done, however. This isn't a rogue opinion-piece: it exemplifies an approach that has become common in recent Christian thinking. Eschewing historical scholarship and running to just 10 pages, the report does little more than apply a radical patina to some highly traditional stereotypes. It obsequiously commends an American activist called Mark Braverman for being "adamant that Christians must not sacrifice the universalist, inclusive dimension of Christianity and revert to the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith because we feel guilty about the Holocaust".

It's as if the 20th century never happened. As late as 1939, Jacques Maritain, the Thomist philosopher, could write a book entitled A Christian Looks at the Jewish Question that perplexedly treated the Jews as a historical aberration. In spite of a historic catastrophe in which the Jews' resilience was not some abstruse theological conundrum but a matter of bare survival amid barbarism, a major Protestant denomination is now reprising the dismal philosophy of counterposing Christian universalism to Jewish particularism.

The Church of Scotland's report is tendentious and inflammatory but it has recognisable ideological roots. While denouncing the biblical literalism that it claims underlies the cause of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, it derives from a reactionary and atavistic theology. According to the paper's authors, Zionism holds that "God promises the land to Abraham and his descendants". That's so crude a depiction of the Jewish national movement that it doesn't even reach the level of caricature. Many early Zionists were reacting against the notion that the Jews were a people engaged in prayer and scriptural study till the Messiah returned. One of the deepest fissures in modern Israeli society is between an ultra-religious minority and a far bigger constituency that supports pluralism.

As a commentator sympathetic to Israel, I pay precisely no attention to sacred texts. I'm swayed instead by Israel's status as a democracy in a region where that form of government is scarce, as a force for scientific inquiry and secularism, and as a polyglot and multi-ethnic society. Under armed siege since its birth, the Jewish state has perpetrated mistakes, injustices and crimes. These tarnish its history but do not invalidate its ethos, whose commitment to pluralism would be exemplified in a pacific two-state solution with a sovereign Palestine.

The Church of Scotland declares portentously that it "is called to speak out against injustice" yet is heedless of the implications. Niebuhr noted "a pitiless perfectionism" within liberal Protestantism that imagines there is a simple method of resolving conflict. In considering the tragic clash of national claims between Israelis and Palestinians, the churches should understand that peace will not be advanced by calumnious sanctimony.

Students raise £1,000-plus for charity at ‘secret’ venue

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:30:13 +0100

Defiant students raised more than £1,000 for Jewish and Israeli charities after ensuring their annual ball went ahead despite attempts from anti-Israel groups to stop it.

St Andrews University Jewish Society was forced to relocate its event after the St Andrews Golf Hotel cancelled its booking with only 48 hours’ notice.

The ball, organised jointly with the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Fraternity, eventually took place at a secret venue in the town last Friday evening with more than 50 students attending.

The original booking was cancelled over safety concerns after members of organisations, including the Palestinian student group We Are All Hana Shalabi and Scottish Jews for a Just Peace, contacted the hotel.

A spokesman for Police Scotland confirmed that police had been alerted by the hotel manager, Niall Thompson, but the JC understands they felt no action was necessary.

Mr Thompson declined to comment.

Students attending the ball were collected from meeting points around
St Andrews and driven to the new venue so that it would remain secret.

A number of Jewish organisations and individuals donated money to the JSoc to assist with the relocation.

Joel Salmon, president of the JSoc, said: “The security of our guests will always be our primary concern. We have been overwhelmed by the support received from the Jewish community, the university and the local authorities.

“JSoc will not cave in to intimidation or bullying.”

Members of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council and Scottish Jewish Chaplaincy spoke to police and the hotel on the students’ behalf.

The same groups claimed last December that a rising number of anti-Israel incidents at Scottish universities had contributed to Jewish students quitting their courses.

Driving conflict

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:46:50 +0100

It is hard to conceive of a more one-sided document than the report on the "promised land" shortly to go to the Church of Scotland's General Assembly.

Although it speaks of "justice", its bias against Israel is so pronounced that it mocks the very word: and though it speaks too of "reconciliation", it is difficult to find a single sentence that is likely to aid the search for peace. The report makes no mention of Arab opposition to partition that led to conflict.

It appears oblivious to the violent anti-Jewish rejectionism of Hamas. Worse, it cannot accept any legitimate biblical grounds for Jewish attachment to Israel. Last year, the Anglican Communion produced a much longer - and much more balanced - report which emphasised that Israel was an "established nation state" whose inhabitants had the right to live in peace and security, and that the Jewish connection with Israel and Jerusalem should be "taken seriously" by Christians.

It is a pity the authors of the Church of Scotland report did not pay more attention to it.

Scottish Church to debate Jewish right to land of Israel

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 02 May 2013 10:44:28 +0100

The Church of Scotland has been attacked by Jewish leaders over a report said to question Israel’s right to exist.

A discussion document compiled by the Church's church and society council suggests that Jews’ claim to the land of Israel could be invalidated by their treatment of Palestinians.

The report will be voted on by the 700 Church members who attend the annual general assembly - the Church's sovereign body - when it meets later this month. If it is passed by a majority, it may become "the considered view of the Church", a spokesperson said.

A Jewish leader who did not want to be named said the 5,000-word report was a “deliberate attempt to question Israel’s right to exist” and would be “very damaging to interfaith relations in Scotland and throughout Britain”.

He warned of the domino effect if an assembly vote endorses the report, adopts it as Church policy and allows it to be publicised throughout Presbyterian communities in Scotland.

The report on “the Promised Land” concludes that Christians should not support exclusive Jewish claims to the land of Israel or use the Bible to “settle contemporary conflicts over land”.

Interfaith groups called it “ill-considered” and “regressive”.

Ephraim Borowski, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities director, said: "The document is an outrage to everything that interfaith dialogue stands for. It is biased, weak on sources, and contradictory, and closes the door on meaningful dialogue.

"On behalf of the Jewish community of Scotland, we call upon the Church to withdraw it from the forthcoming general assembly. If the Church cannot build bridges, can it at least refrain from burning them?"

Board of Deputies vice-president Jonathan Arkush said: “I am at a loss for words that the Church of Scotland should have delivered such a slap in the face to the Jewish community.

“The document is deeply troubling on many levels. It appears to have been produced with no consultation with the Scottish or national Jewish community. It is littered with misrepresentations of Jewish history, values and beliefs as well as basic factual errors.

“It is an ignorant and tendentious document masquerading as a theological statement. The Church has done a deep disservice to itself by producing a document without any regard to the trust, respect and dialogue on which interfaith relations should be based.”

The report states: “There has been a widespread assumption by many Christians as well as many Jewish people that the Bible supports an essentially Jewish state of Israel. This raises an increasing number of difficulties and current Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians have sharpened this questioning.”

Looking at the history of Christian Zionism and alleged violations of human rights, the report asks: “Would the Jewish people today have a fairer claim to the land if they dealt justly with the Palestinians?”

It adds that from some Christian perspectives, “the desire of many in the state of Israel to acquire the land of Palestine for the Jewish people is wrong. The fact that the land is currently being taken by settlement expansion, the separation barrier, house clearance, theft and force makes it doubly wrong to seek biblical sanction for this”.

The report urges the Church to consider backing “economic and political measures involving boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions against the state of Israel focused on illegal settlements”.

It also calls on Christians to lobby the British government to pressure Israel to halt settlement building and push for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

CCJ chief executive Reverend David Gifford said the report was ill-considered, regressive and insensitive to Jewish anxieties and the range of Israeli public opinion.

“The at times unfortunate words and phrases reflect sadly on the authors and smacks of Christian superiority over Judaism,” he said.

“While few would disagree that serious issues need to be addressed by the state of Israel, instead of offering fresh opportunities and an openness to engage with the Jewish community in a joint response to the worrying trends in the Israel/Palestine conflict, this report runs the risk of further alienating our own Jewish community and increasing its fear and anxiety.”

Right Reverend Albert Bogle, Moderator of the Church’s General Assembly, is a president of the Council of Christians and Jews.

Ed Kessler, founder director of the Woolf Institute which studies interfaith relations, said the report was a demonstration “that it is easier for Christians to condemn antisemitism as a misunderstanding of Christian teaching than to come to terms with the re-establishment of the Jewish state.

“There is a reluctance, even inability, to appreciate that there are two narratives — one Jewish/Israeli and the other Palestinian/Arab.

“The document fails to take seriously the concerns of both sides but has a partisan agenda — the promotion of Palestinian rights. Why is it so rare to find Christian organisations, let alone Jewish, which are both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli? Blinkered views prevail.”

Church members will begin a two-week tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday.

Sally Foster-Fulton, Convenor of the Church and Society Council, said: “The Church of Scotland chose the words of its report carefully to question and challenge not condemn or dismiss. It cannot and will not shy away from difficult subjects nor from speaking the truth in love — otherwise how we will ever progress?

“A good friend speaks the truth, even when that truth is a hard one. There can be no lasting peace without justice — that is surely the truth.”

Jewish society flourishes in Scotland

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:55:09 +0100

Glasgow JSoc has enjoyed a year of revival, culminating with being named runner-up in the Developing JSoc of the Year category at the Union of Jewish Students’ annual awards.

New committee members said they had worked hard to run a series of innovative events, including a Shabbat dinner hosted by Glasgow University’s Catholic chaplaincy.

University Jewish Chaplaincy’s Yossi and Sarah Bodenheim have supported the committee’s efforts, helping it overcome the challenges of preparing kosher meals and arranging for the Catholic chaplain to provide facilities.

Isaac Ansell, JSoc president, said a meeting with UJS representatives and Hillel had been a “positive first step of a determined operation on behalf of Glasgow’s Jewish students”.

JSoc members (pictured above) have campaigned for a facility on, or close to, the university which could be used to host events, particularly on Shabbat.

A residential space would allow the society to host students and speakers from outside the city. Among the other successful events held by the JSoc were pub-crawls, film nights and a sushi night.

Mr Ansell said: “Glasgow Jsoc is here to unite Jewish students from all of Glasgow’s universities. We are here for all your needs — whether you’re looking for great events such as Friday night meals, or just a warm, comfortable environment with lots of friendly faces.”

Scottish council's Israel boycott ‘biased and offensive’

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Supporters of Israel have challenged the legality of a boycott of the country imposed by a Scottish council.

Clackmannanshire Council has not said whether its decision to “resist all economic and political support for Israel” will result in the refusal to hire Israelis, or a ban on pro-Israel public demonstrations taking place in the area.

The boycott was implemented by 11 councillors earlier this month after lobbying by anti-Israel activists from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The JC understands that Jeremy Newmark and Jon Benjamin, the chief executives of the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies, told the authority that the policy was “offensive, biased and objectionable on many counts, and grossly misrepresents the situation in the region, demonising Israel”.

Mick Davis, chair of the JLC trustees, said Clackmannanshire’s policy “represents a deterioration” in the fightback against anti-Israel boycotts.

But he added: “The idea of a small local council like Clackmannanshire running its own foreign policy is laughable. However, the support for the motion from mainstream Labour councillors crosses the party’s own red lines and I have no doubt that they will take this up with their local representatives.”

The Fair Play Campaign Group, which opposes boycotts, has written to council chief executive Elaine McPherson questioning the legal steps taken by the authority before the policy was adopted.

FPCG has asked Ms McPherson to explain how the measures will be implemented, and whether they will amount to a refusal to work with Israeli citizens and businesses.

It demanded that Clackmannanshire explain a series of possible effects, including whether the council would refuse to buy Israeli products, whether the authority’s officers would be obliged to attend or organise counter-demonstrations against pro-Israel events, and whether the council would send anti-Israel material to residents to encourage “individual sanctions”, as outlined in the policy.

The letter states: “It is the open-endedness and breadth of the motion that is especially troubling, as it appears to place a general duty on the council in all its functions to find ways to oppose both Israel and its supporters.”

A council spokesman claimed a boycott was not being implemented, but said that the authority had “agreed to resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action that provides political or economic support to the state of Israel”.

Independent councillor Archie Drummond, who proposed the motion, and Scottish National Party council leader Gary Womersley, have both refused to comment.

Scottish council imposes boycott of 'apartheid Israel'

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:30:03 +0000

One of Scotland’s smallest councils has implemented a boycott of Israel after comparing the country to apartheid South Africa.

Clackmannanshire Council said it would resist all economic and political support for Israel in order to “end suffering in Palestine”.

The boycott was implemented by 11 councillors after lobbying by anti-Israel activists from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The Scottish National Party-led authority has a combined population of around 50,000.

The Fair Play Campaign Group, which opposes boycotts, said the move was a “stunt” which would have “no impact on the real world”.

A motion was proposed at a meeting last week by Independent Councillor Archie Drummond. The boycott was passed with 11 votes in favour and five abstentions.

The policy condemns Israel’s “continuing illegal occupation of Palestine’s east Jerusalem and the West Bank” and the “illegal blockade of Gaza” and backs the United Nations’ recognition of Palestinian statehood.

The motion concluded: “Just as individual sanctions against apartheid South Africa led ultimately to its demise there, so individual and collective sanctions against the state of Israel will end apartheid and suffering in Palestine.

“Clackmannanshire Council therefore resolves to resist, insofar as legislative considerations permit, any action that gives political or economic support to the state of Israel.”

Councillors made no mention of Hamas terrorist attacks or security concerns for Israeli civilians.

The SPSC claimed one of its members was responsible for lobbying Cllr Drummond and convincing him to back a boycott. Supporters were encouraged to write to the council offering “congratulations and thanks” for the policy.

Neither Cllr Drummond, nor council leader Gary Womersley, replied to repeated requests from the JC for explanations on how the boycott would work. The council said it “did not operate in a discriminatory way” and would “always do business within legislative requirements”, but would not comment further.

The Fair Play Campaign spokesman said: “The idea of Clackmannanshire Council having its own foreign policy is ridiculous. We urge the councillors to grow up and abandon this biased stunt of a motion.”

The Scottish Government said the boycott was a “matter for the council”, but pledged to work with both Israelis and Palestinians to take “the necessary steps towards a peaceful, two-state solution”.

In 2011, West Dunbartonshire Council discussed removing books by Israeli authors from authority-run libraries as part of a long-standing boycott policy.