Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has held his first meeting with his fellow leaders of the Council of Christians and Jews since taking office last year.

Topics discussed by the group of CCJ presidents included “the need to confront a worrying increase in antisemitism and the role of CCJ in enabling churches and Jewish communities to discuss the situation in the Holy Land in a spirit of mutual respect and generosity,” according to Lambeth Palace.

Jewish presidents at the meeting included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, senior rabbi of the Reform movement Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner and the recently retired spiritual head of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation Rabbi Abraham Levy.

CCJ chief executive The Reverend David Gifford meanwhile has announced that he is to step down later this year to take a full-time clerical post.

CCJ chairman, the Bishop of Manchester, the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, said that Mr Gifford had “exercised wise and much appreciated mediation in some complex relationships between the two faiths” during his eight years as chief executive.