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May 6, 2005/Nisan 27 5765, Volume 57, No. 36
Protestant divestment drive stirs ire
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
HANK NEYER
Contributing Editor
NEW YORK - As a growing number of Protestant churches consider imposing economic sanctions against Israel, the Jewish community is threatening to abandon interfaith dialogue with mainstream Protestant groups.
"Any Protestant denomination that would consider the weapon of economic sanctions to be unilaterally and prejudicially used against the State of Israel, or those who would hold the State of Israel to a standard different from any other sovereign state, creates an environment which makes constructive dialogue almost impossible," mainstream Jewish defense groups and the three main religious streams wrote in an April 22 letter to Protestant leaders.
The letter is considered the strongest language that Jewish groups have used to date on the issue.
The letter "signals a change in the tone and the tenor of our discourse," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
The missive comes after a flurry of recent activity by churches considering divestment some nine months after a Protestant group first made it a prominent issue.
That was last summer, when the Presbyterian Church USA passed a resolution considering a "selective, phased divestment" of companies that do business with Israel.
The resolution shocked Jewish officials, who in reaction scurried to step up interfaith relations. But it also created a point of departure for other Protestant denominations to mull divestment as a way, they believe, to promote Mideast peace.
In November, the board of the Episcopal Church voted to consider corporate actions against companies that "contribute to the infrastructure of Israel's ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," along with companies that "have connections to organizations responsible for violence against Israel."
"The emphasis of this process is not likely to be divestment," according to Maureen Shea, the church's director of government relations.
Two weeks ago, the board of the United Methodist Church voted to conduct a yearlong study to consider divestment. Last week, the United Church of Christ released resolutions it will consider at its annual conference in Atlanta in July; two suggest divestment, while one urges Israel to dismantle its West Bank security barrier.
In a move Jewish groups consider positive, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted last week for "constructive investment" to partner with Israeli and Palestinian organizations that promote peace.
The Protestant pursuit of divestment is not limited to the United States: The Geneva-based World Council of Churches, a predominantly European consortium, passed a resolution in February encouraging churches to follow the initiative of the Presbyterian Church USA and consider divesting from Israel.
Many Jewish observers have been stunned by the swirl of activity.
"I think it's one of the stranger things I've seen," said David Elcott, U.S. director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee. "I don't understand why this issue would come up now," when Israel is taking steps for peace with the Palestinians.
Jews "have a certain amount of responsibility to educate the Protestant community to the issues surrounding divestment," said Michelle Steinberg, director of The Jewish Community Relations Council of Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. "Our interfaith relationships are very important to the federation and to the Jewish community.
"I believe that we have a responsibility to continue to work with other faiths on areas where we have mutual interests. We have a tremendous amount to gain from the interfaith relationships that we have cultivated."
Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky of Beth El Congregation of Phoenix said his congregation's Israel Affairs Committee (IAC) began a letter-writing campaign to local churches last summer as soon as the Presbyterian Church began considering divestment, asking them to pressure their church to rescind its decision to perform divestment against Israel.
"Obviously it is a horrible thing that some of the liberal churches in the United States are doing," Lavinsky said. "They tend to side almost always with a group that is perceived to be downtrodden. And the Palestinians - who are clearly not as powerful militarily as Israel -fall into that category. Almost as a knee-jerk reaction they will identify with the Palestinians because (the Palestinians) have a difficult lot.
"What the Christians ignore in their resolutions and in the deliberations is that if the Palestinians were only willing to live alongside Israel in peace and to make just a few concessions ... they would have had their state and they'd be living a much better life right now."
The rabbi said this "misguided liberation theology" has caused nothing but "heartache and has been a great source of pain for Jewish-Christian relations."
Lavinsky said while many Jews are "suspect" of fundamentalist Christians, many of them "are the best friends Jews have on the American religious and political scene."
Lavinsky said the IAC wrote to as many as 50 Presbyterian churches in the Phoenix area asking them to have their national church body reconsider its position. Lavinsky said he received a handful of responses, some favorable and others stating that Israel needed to deal with the Palestinians fairly and honestly.
Not all Protestants agree with the church leadership.
Gary J. Green of Chandler, a member of Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, serves on the Washington, D.C.-based Steering Committee for the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
He described the institute as a group of Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbyterians working on a national level to get the mainline Protestant churches "back onto a biblical track instead of going off on socialist causes."
Green said divestiture is "not a biblical-type action or cause; it's not supported by the Bible."
Green said that proponents of divestiture have launched a "propaganda campaign." That is "not a Christian way of approaching - or solving - any problem," he said. "That's like saying, 'I'm your permanent enemy until you join me in my view.'"
Lavinsky observed that "believing Christians" often ask themselves, "What would Jesus do?"
Lavinsky noted that "if Jesus were alive today, and if he is the way he was depicted in the Christian Bible, he would not offer aid and support to murderers. He would probably be visiting hospitals and rehabilitation centers and comforting victims of terror."
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