Jewish groups hit Presbyterian study guide on Israel

Presbyterian Church USANEW YORK (Press Release)– AJC is challenging the Presbyterian Church (USA) commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace, following the publication of Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide.

This study guide, billed by the church as an educational resource, was produced by the Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), one of the church’s educational arms. “It is a devastating distortion of Jewish and Israeli history, aimed at nothing less than eradicating the State of Israel,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s Director of Intergroup and Interreligious Relations.

“Remarkably, Zionism Unsettled contravenes the 2008 Presbyterian Church vow ‘to become nonpartisan advocates for peace,’” said Marans. “Unfortunately, the PC (USA) continues to allow the completely partisan and unrepresentative IPMN to operate as its educational arm regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The study guide, for sale on the PC (USA) website, was released in advance of the PC (USA) General Assembly, which will take place in June, and is expected to vote on a resolution supporting the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against Israel.

Zionism Unsettled, according to its introduction, provides Christian, Jewish and Muslim perspectives on Zionist history, and advises how churches can contribute to the cause of just peace and promote relationships among followers of the three Abrahamic religions.

“The seemingly balanced approach is a façade,” said Marans. “The study guide is reminiscent of medieval Christian polemics against Judaism, with the authors claiming to know better than the Jewish community how Jews define themselves. This is another example of the ongoing effort to demonize Israel by a cadre of people who want to see the dismantlement of the Jewish state.”

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Preceding provided by the American Jewish Committee

JCPA says publication is ‘worthy of a hate group’

NEW YORK (Press Release) A recent publication by The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Israel Palestine Mission Network is “worthy of a hate group, not a prominent American church,” said JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow. “The Presbyterian congregational resource, titled Zionism Unsettled, is “an affront to Jews, Israel, peacemaking and truthtelling.”

“Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people should have a national existence in our homeland,” added Gutow. “Like me, most Jews are Zionists and embrace a two-state solution, a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state living side-by-side.  However, the Presbyterian publication makes a uni-dimensional straw man of Zionism, distorting history, often quoting individuals and groups out of context, branding Zionism as a ‘false’ and ‘oppressive’ theology.  It is not enough for the authors of this document to traffic in the odious libel that Zionism is racism – they compare Zionism to Nazism.  We hope and expect the leadership of the church will repudiate this document.”

“Zionism is an important part of modern Jewish self understanding,” said Rabbi Leonard Gordon, JCPA Chair of Interfaith Relations.  “While there is a range of opinion about Israeli policies and there are many strands of Zionism, the authors of Zionism Unsettled imagine a Judaism without a national existence.  In the eyes of Zionism Unsettled, Jewish national existence implies a primitive, tribalistic, immoral religious stance. This guide turns its back on more than 50 years of deepening interfaith understanding, including the commitment to understand others as they understand themselves.  The Presbyterian document profoundly disrespects the Jewish community – no less than if Jews lifted up the voices of Christians who demean the dearly held tenets of Christianity.”

According to the PCUSA website, which sells the publication, the IPMN is chartered by the PCUSA, advised by PCUSA staff, supports PCUSA policies, and is charged to “speak to the church not for the church.”  Contributions to IPMN are made to the PCUSA and, by law, expenditures must be approved by PCUSA.  “As such it is impossible to separate the toxic actions of IPMN from the PCUSA without the kind of clarification from PCUSA officials that remains sorely missing,” added Gutow.

“We recognize that most Presbyterians support for a two-state solution, a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and want positive relations with the Jewish community,” said Gutow and Gordon.  “We appreciate that the past four PCUSA General Assemblies have rejected the demonizing and frankly radical stances advanced by groups in the PCUSA.  We hope and pray that delegates to the upcoming PCUSA General Assembly will embrace positive outcomes that favor reconciliation and reject negative overtures including divestment.”

JCPA, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community, serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 15 national and 125 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations.

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Preceding provided by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs

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Wiesenthal Center describes Presbyterian Church USA as a ‘hostile church’

LOS ANGELES (Press Release) –A new Presbyterian publication slanders Zionists — Jews and Christians alike — denigrating the heart of Jewish identity. The 74-page Zionism Unsettled, sold through the main Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) website, “Explores the theological and ethical exceptionalism of Jewish and Christian Zionism, which have been sheltered from open debate despite the intolerable human rights abuses rooted in their core beliefs.”

“This outrageous screed is the theological twin of the infamous 1975 UN ‘Zionism is Racism’ resolution,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights NGO. “Zionism Unsettled is a hit-piece outside all norms of interfaith dialogue. It is a compendium of distortions, ignorance and outright lies – that tragically has emanated too often from elites within this church,” Cooper continued, adding,

To be clear, this publication isn’t an attack on particular Israeli policies but on the very idea of a Jewish return to Zion. By publishing this document, the PCUSA has deployed the nuclear option against the vast majority of Jews, calling us inherently racist and abusive. We call on our Christian associates – including those critical of some of Israel’s policies – to denounce this disgusting attack aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing the world’s largest Jewish community and all lovers of Zion. It will take Christian voices to offer the antidote to the poison served up by other Christians. And if this book reflects the feelings of the PCUSA, the Simon Wiesenthal Center will divest all contacts from this institution and call on other Jewish organizations to do them same.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Center’s Director of Interfaith Affairs said that, “PCUSA has plunged interfaith dialogue back to the days of Adversus Judaeos literature of the early Church.” Adlerstein added that,

Christian guilt for the theological anti-Semitism that helped paved the way for the Holocaust led to what was supposed to be a new understanding and mutual regard for the sister religions. Such dialogue always presupposed that Jews and Christians would not only listen to each other, but also understand – even when they could not adopt – the basic yearnings, needs, and self-definitions of the other. PCUSA leaders’ promotion of this document means that the leaders of this church have learned nothing about who Jews are after decades of conversation. Such attacks describing our core belief as ‘rooted’ in ‘intolerable human rights abuses’ reveals there is nothing left to talk about with such religious bigots.

“Jews will now regard PCUSA as a hostile church,” Adlerstein concluded

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Preceding provided by the Wiesenthal Center