From: David Virtue
Subject: As Eye See It: Anglicans have betrayed the Jews - by Irene Lancaster
Anglicans have betrayed the Jews
by Dr Irene Lancaster
THE CHIEF RABBI, Dr Jonathan Sacks, stated three years ago that:
"Anti-Semitism exists . . . whenever two contradictory factors appear in
combination: the belief that Jews are so powerful that they are
responsible for the evils of the world, and the knowledge that they are
so powerless that they can be attacked with impunity" (lecture to the
Inter-Parliamentary Committee against Anti-Semitism, 28 February 2002).
How prophetic these words have become. The Jewish community in Britain
is alarmed by the increasing anti-Semitism in the Anglican Church, much
of it based on ignorance. For instance, many people outside the Jewish
community really believe that Israel, a country the size of Wales, is,
as Dr Sacks said, "responsible for the evils of the world", while Jewish
people know only too well that, as 0.5 per cent of the population, "they
are so powerless that they can be attacked with impunity".
To many British Jews, segments of the media, including the BBC, The
Guardian and The Independent, constantly misrepresent Israel. These
misrepresentations then affect other organisations.
First, there was the Association of University Teachers (AUT), which
called for a boycott of two Israeli universities. Now the Anglican
Consultative Council, in what the journalist Melanie Phillips has called
"the Church's AUT moment", said that it "welcomes" the Anglican Peace
and Justice Network's statement on Israel (News, 1 July; 5 August).
Jewish institutions and individuals have been discussing how they are
affected by media reporting. Last week, the Community Security Trust,
which advises and represents the Jewish community on security and
anti-Semitism, asked me to tell the Church Times that:
"It frequently appears that there are no limits to the hatred and bias
that can be expressed against Israel or Zionism. Anti-Semites take
comfort from this hatred, and regard it as a cue to attack Jews at
random here in Britain. Anti-Semitic incidents' levels since the year
2000 have been the worst recorded in decades. The rise in incidents is
appalling. This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago."
The Board of Deputies described its concern at the fact that "In 2004,
there were 532 anti-Semitic incidents in the UK, which was a 42 per cent
increase on the figures for 2003, which was a substantial increase on
the figures for 2002."
THE BBC apologised when the Scottish hymn-writer, the Revd Dr John Bell
of the Iona Community, "made two factual mistakes" about the Israeli
army on the Radio 4's Thought for the Day in February.
This was a wake-up call for the Jewish community, even though Christian
aid agencies and "peace groups" have for a long time appeared to us to
be attacking Israel, and ignoring attempts to hear other points of view.
Individual Jews have reported experiencing violent verbal attacks during
public pro-Palestinian meetings held in church buildings.
Joanne Green, a Jewish journalist, said: "Despite the BBC charter, I
can't think of any programmes that are critical of the Palestinians,
despite their kangaroo courts, public hangings, threats to journalists,
incitement to racial and religious hatred, corruption, and threats to
destroy Israel.
"Also, as an active member of the Council of Christians and Jews, I feel
betrayed by the Anglican Church. All those receptions at St James's
Palace and earnest tributes from church leaders regretting their
millennia-long persecution of the Jews don't mean anything any more.
When Jews need real recognition of the danger they are in, where is the
Church? Aligning themselves with those who want to wipe Israel from the
face of the earth, after it was they who were responsible for the
Holocaust. Forgive them, Lord, for they probably do know exactly what
they do. How dare the Church lecture Jews on morality."
Many people mention the Church's apparent silence in the face of the
growing attacks on the British Jewish community. For one seasoned
American journalist and Episcopalian cleric: "In Britain, there is a
degree of open anti-Semitism that would be unthinkable in the USA. The C
of E has been complicit in this, both by keeping silent, and by not
cracking down on its members who cross the line in their advocacy of the
Palestinian cause, and fall into Jew-baiting."
Canon Andrew White, CEO of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the
Middle East, agrees. "Is there a new anti-Semitism?" he asks. "For Jews,
disinvestment [in Israel] is not just anti-Zionism, but anti-Semitism.
Christians defend their position by saying they are against Israel, not
the Jews. Yet there is no call by the Christians to disinvest from
countries where Christians are persecuted, or banned. Israel is viewed
as the evil nation, that evil democratic nation - that just happens to
be the only homeland for the Jewish people in the world.
"Now that there is an acute awareness of the dangers of Islamic
fundamentalism, the Christian world needs to wake up to the fact that
more Jews have been killed by Christians than by Muslims. It is no
longer sufficient for the Church to blame Israel for its own
anti-Semitism. The replacement theology that laid the ground for nearly
two millennia of anti-Judaic polemic is on its way back. This time, it
is dressed up as concern for the Palestinians."
Benjamin, a 32-year-old Jew, who stayed at my house last Shabbat, en
route to an International Council of Christians and Jews convention,
said: "Christians are encouraged to love their enemies. We are no longer
the enemy, just irrelevant; no longer the enemy, just the object of hate
and vilification."
For, as the Holocaust author Raoul Hillberg has said: "There is a
straight line from 'You have no right to live among us as Jews' to 'You
have no right to live among us' to 'You have no right to live.'"
--This piece was original published in the Church Times, August 19th
2005. Dr Irene Lancaster is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Jewish
Studies at the University of Manchester, England and is the author of
works on Jewish history and the Bible, and an Orthodox Jew engaged in
interfaith work with the Anglican Church and others.
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/08/anglicans_have.php
No comments:
Post a Comment