New Presbyterian statement against anti-Jewish bias 'infused with …
Source: Jerusalem Post (Original Article)
Many of American Jewry’s largest religious and advocacy groups have lashed out in the past few days at the Presbyterian Church USA for a new document published by the church that warned against anti-Jewish bias in the church’s pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The new document “does more to excuse anti-Semitism and foster anti-Jewish motifs then it does to dispel them,” according to a strongly worded letter to church leader Rev. Cliff Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church, from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; and Dr. Carl Sheingold, executive vice president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation.
The new version of “Vigilance Against anti-Jewish Bias in the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace,” placed on the church’s Web site last week, replaces a previous version presented in May, which was welcomed by Jewish leaders and groups. It comes just days ahead of the June 21 opening of the 2008 Presbyterian Church General Assembly in San Jose, California.
Questioning with “deep suspicion” the “motivations” behind the new document, Yoffie, Epstein and Sheingold noted that the revision had dropped, among other things, the “acknowledgement of [the church's] complicity” in anti-Jewish bias, and replaced it with “a statement that is completely unbalanced in its appraisal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which contains veiled threats of ‘divestment,’ and which completely undoes much of the positive language and progress that were presented” in the earlier document.
While affirming the legitimacy of “denunciation of injustices the State of Israel has committed or may commit,” the May ANZ Rewards Credit Card version included a warning against “demonization …continue reading