|
|
July 23, 2004/Av 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 44
Protestant group OKs divestment
ERIC J. GREENBERG
The Forward
NEW YORK - In an unprecedented victory for pro-Palestinian activists, leaders of the largest Pres-byterian denomination officially equated the Jewish state with apartheid South Africa and have voted to stop investing in Israel.
With the decision, approved in a 431-62 vote at the 216th annual General Assembly of Presbyterian Church (USA), the church, boasting nearly 3 million members, is believed to be the largest organization or institution to join the divestment campaign against Israel. It is the first Christian denomination to do so, according to Sister Patricia Wolfe, executive director of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of 275 Christian denominations.
"This now raises the issue," Wolfe said, "and will cause ICCR to have a discussion."
In 2001 the combined value of the church's foundation and pension fund was estimated at $7 billion.
Leaders of Presbyterian Church (USA), a mainline Protestant church, approved several other anti-Israel resolutions at their gathering in Richmond, Va., and also refused to halt funding for "messianic congregations" that target Jews for conversion.
The Presbyterian reso-lutions came just as Jewish organizations were hailing the results of an historic international interfaith meeting in Buenos Aires July 5-8, where Roman Catholic officials for the first time signed on to a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
The declaration, also signed by Jewish communal leaders, calls for "the total rejection of anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism as a more recent mani-festation of anti-Semitism." The declaration also decries terrorism, calling it a sin against man and God, and declaring that "terror, in all its forms, and killing 'in the name of God' can never be justified."
Rabbi Gary Bretton-Grana-toor, director of interfaith affairs at the Anti-Defa-mation League, who helped draft the Buenos Aires document, said, "While the Catholics are decrying anti-Semitism in any form, it appears as if the Presby-terians are pretending it doesn't exist."
The Buenos Aires docu-ment was signed by members of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews, and the Interna-tional Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation (IJCIC), a coalition including ADL, World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Com-mittee and representatives of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform synagogue movements. It marks the first time at an interfaith meeting that the Catholic Church has equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, which Pope John Paul II has defined as a sin.
"With the imprimatur of the Vatican, the Catholic Church is recognizing that anti-Zionism is an attack not only against Jews, but against the whole Jewish people," said Elan Steinberg, executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress.
"I believe it is important for Catholic-Jewish relations because it deepens the Vati-can's firm commitment to the State of Israel as a political entity," said Father John Pawlikowski, head of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at Catholic Theo-logical Union in Chicago, who also helped draft the docu-ment.
Jewish and Catholic lead-ers pledged to publicize the declaration and to work together for justice and charity - the themes of the conference. Theological issues and human rights concerns were discussed, as well, and participants pro-posed a joint celebration next year commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II Council.
The tone was quite different in Richmond, where Presby-terian leaders passed several highly critical resolutions regarding Israel. Jewish organizational leaders were particularly angry over the divestment measure.
"The national policy is very, very troublesome," said Rabbi Gil Rosenthal, exe-cutive director of the National Council of Syna-gogues, in an interview with the Forward. Rosenthal, who said he was the first rabbi ever invited to a General Assembly, added: "I'm dismayed that there's such a one-sided attitude."
Rabbi Lennard Thal, senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which recently launched a national inter-religious dialogue with Presbyterians as well as other Protestant represen-tatives, said he was very disappointed, calling the resolutions "heavy-handed."
James Rudin, senior inter-religious adviser to the American Jewish Committee, called the Presbyterian actions "a catastrophic disaster."
This story was first published in The Forward.
|
|
