The Church of Scotland has written a document that suggests that Jews may not have a valid claim to the Land of Israel because of an \u201cincreasing number of difficulties and current Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local Jewish leaders are up in arms and fear that if the church adopts the document at its annual general assembly, it may be become official church policy, the London Jewish Chronicle reported.<\/p>\n
The Church of Scotland\u2019s annual general assembly is to vote on the 5,000-word report later this month,<\/p>\n
If the proposed view passes the vote, it may become \u201cthe considered view of the Church,\u201d a spokesperson told the newspaper.<\/p>\n
The document is a \u201cdeliberate attempt to question Israel\u2019s right to exist\u201d and would be \u201cvery damaging to interfaith relations in Scotland and throughout Britain, a Jewish leader, who remained anonymous, told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n
The report is entitled \u201cThe Promised Land\u201d and concludes that Christians should reject the idea that Jews have an exclusive claim to the Land of Israel. It also opposes using the Bible to \u201csettle contemporary conflicts over land.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 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?\u201d Ephraim Borowski, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities director told the London Jewish newspaper.<\/p>\n
Board of Deputies vice-president Jonathan Arkush said, \u201cThe document \u2026appears 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chronicle said that the report states, \u201cThere 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\u2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The document urged the Church not only to back the boycott movement but also to lobby the British government to pressure Israel to deny the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria.<\/p>\n
Ed Kessler, founder director of the Woolf Institute which studies interfaith relations, told the newspaper that the report demonstrates \u201cit is easier for Christians to condemn anti-Semitism as a misunderstanding of Christian teaching than to come to terms with the re-establishment of the Jewish state\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThe document fails to take seriously the concerns of both sides but has a partisan agenda \u2014 the promotion of Palestinian rights. Why is it so rare to find Christian organizations, let alone Jewish, which are both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli? Blinkered views prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sally Foster-Fulton, Convenor of the Church and Society Council, said, \u201cThe Church of Scotland chose the words of its report carefully to question and challenge not condemn or dismiss,\u201d according to the Chronicle. \u201cIt cannot and will not shy away from difficult subjects nor from speaking the truth in love \u2014 otherwise how we will ever progress?\u201d<\/p>\n
JP<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.jewishpress.com\/news\/church-of-scotland-questions-right-of-israel-to-exist\/2013\/05\/03\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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