A group of Church of England interfaith advisers have condemned the Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” vote, saying it forms part of “a wider deeply concerning drift towards an increasingly antisemitic culture in our country”.
They urged Christian Green Party members to stand in solidarity with Jewish Greens and work to change party policy or consider leaving it.
In their statement, they said they agreed with Jewish leaders across the board that the resolution at the party’s conference over the weekend was antisemitic, which constituted “an attack on the Jewish community and risks further stoking anti-Jewish hatred”.
The statement was endorsed by the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker; the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Michael Volland; and the Bishop of Aston Esther Tamisa Prior; as well as by 11 local diocese interfaith advisers including Canon Guy Wilkinson, former interfaith adviser to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
The vote risked “further eroding the trust that has been carefully built between Jewish communities the Church of England and wider society over many years,” they warned.
It formed “part of a wider and troubling pattern in public life”, they said, that included dismissal of the October 7 “pogrom”; the “casual and repeated claim of ‘genocide’”; terror attacks on Jewish communities; and pro-Palestinian demonstrations near synagogues where messages supporting Hamas were displayed.
They also cited the recent vote at the Church of England’s Synod, which recommended that Church members engage with “Kairos II”, a declaration by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide and calls on churches not to hold dialogue with Zionists.
The Synod debate had not only caused pain but ignored many years of dialogue, the interfaith advisers said.
“These developments reveal a slippery slope, contributing to a climate which undermines Jewish strength and participation in wider society and increases Jewish vulnerability and marginalisation.
“Jewish trauma is sidelined, and a strong and visible Jewish identity is treated as politically suspect rather than a societal, theological and communal reality that adds to the diversity of our nation,” they said.
“We have seen how legitimate advocacy for Palestinian dignity, legitimacy and self-determination – which we affirm – can be distorted when it is not held alongside an equally robust commitment to Jewish safety, Jewish self-identity and Jewish flourishing in all its diversity.”
They called on political leaders, Church institutions and citizens across England to “join us in resisting the current drift in our national life towards increasing antisemitism”.
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