Subscribe to Print Edition | Thu., July 31, 2008 Tamuz 28, 5768 | | Israel Time: 17:26 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Rosner's Domain
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 17:10 01/07/2008
How would Jesus vote on Mideast peace?
By Bradley Burston
Tags: anti-Semitism, Burston 

Thanks to the Presbyterians, I've been thinking a great deal about Jesus lately. Not as my personal lord and savior, but, in at least a virtual sense, a rabbi worth listening to.

I have wondered in the past what role Jesus, the Jew of Palestine, might have taken in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whether he might have been a Rabbi for Human Rights or a settler in an outpost, a hip-hop Haredi blogger in Beit Shemesh or a Meretz member of Knesset.


This week, I believe that Jesus might have been comfortable being a Presbyterian.

This is not the given that it might seem. For years, vocal if unrepresentative activists of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. had enraged even dovish Jews, here and abroad, with blatantly anti-Israel moves and declarations that bordered at times on genuine Jew hate.

In 2004, in an incident that caused the church shame and frayed relations with Jews, members of the church's Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy met with Hezbollah officials during a fact-finding visit to the Middle East, with one church elder quoted after the meeting as commenting, "I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders."

A month before, the church's highest governing body had approved a resolution whose anti-Israel bias outraged even Rabbis for Human Rights, an avowedly anti-occupation group zealously advocating for the welfare of Palestinians.

The resolution, which called for divestment from "multinational corporations operating in Israel," declared that Israel's occupation has "proven to be at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict."

Rabbis for Human Rights, citing the "highly charged language" of the resolution, called it "Particularly insensitive to history and appalling in its potential consequences ... a restatement of the paradigmatic allegation that Jewish sins are somehow especially significant, especially 'at the root of evil.'"

It took nearly four years for the church to come to grips with blatant demonization of Israel and a lingering undertone of anti-Jewish sentiment in past Presbyterian resolutions. The church did so in a position paper issued in May, to the enthusiastic praise of Jewish leaders. The document condemned church resolutions "declaring that the Jewish people are no longer in covenant with God ... or to blame for the crucifixion."

It took less than four weeks, however, for the church to quietly withdraw the document in favor of a new one which effectively absolves the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. of blame in the use of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel imagery.

Referring to Israel as "the oppressive force in the Israeli-Palestinian situation," the new paper suggested, in the words of Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, interfaith director of the Simon Wiesenthal center, that using crucifixion language in regard to Israeli soldiers is problematic only because Jews "inevitably construe" such imagery as anti-Jewish.

"Imagine," Rabbi Adlerstein wrote in Christianity Today magazine, referring to the landmark 1965 Vatican II declaration in which the Roman Catholic Church renounced entrenched anti-Semitic doctrines, "if a week later, Pope Paul VI stood on the porch of Castel Gandolfo and announced, 'There has been a terrible misunderstanding. All we meant is that when we complain, as we must from time to time, about price-gouging around Christmas by pushy Jewish merchants (by that we only mean some of them, of course), we should not go so far as to blame them for the crucifixion. That hurts their feelings.'"

Adding insult to chronic injury, some Presbyterians said that Jewish leaders were overreacting. "The Jewish groups go nuts every time we make any statement they interpret as favorable to Palestine or the Palestinians," Jerry Van Marter, coordinator of the Presbyterian News Service, told the New Jersey Jewish News.

Last week, however, in a gesture as welcome as it was overdue, the church's General Assembly passed a resolution that is a model for constructive compassion in the service of Middle East peacemaking.

"We will avoid taking broad stands that simplify a very complex situation into a caricature of reality where one side clearly is at fault and the other side is clearly the victim," the resolution states.

It calls on the church to "Condemn all acts of violence against innocent civilians," urging the General Assembly to "be a voice for the victims of violence in both Israel and Palestine. We ask PC(USA) members, congregations, committees, and other entities to become nonpartisan advocates for peace.

"As such, we will not over-identify with the realities of the Israelis or Palestinians. Instead we will identify with the need for peacemaking voices in the midst of horrific acts of violence and terror.

A resolution of which the rabbi for human rights named Jesus could justifiably be proud.

_______________

Previous blogs:

Perhaps we killed Christ after all
Experiment: Peace dead? Send us your own plan!
Israel's own version of Holocaust denial
Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism
Fox News will elect Obama president
The talkbacker as terrorist


More Jewish World news and features

Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Calling it quits
Beleaguered prime minister announces he will not run in Kadima party primaries.
Obama's hunch
Report: Obama 'gets the feeling' Israel to strike Iran if sanctions fail.
  1.   A few words from the illegimate Son 17:59  |  Jesus Alvin Christ 01/07/08
  2.   Was Jesus anti-Semitic? 18:01  |  Shimshon Hagiladi 01/07/08
  3.   needs more context 19:36  |  Andrew 01/07/08
  4.   Another option 21:55  |  Nicolas 01/07/08
  5.   Jesus 23:32  |  Jan Vlaming 01/07/08
  6.   #4 If Jesus was a Palestinian of the sort you describe... 01:03  |  Jack 02/07/08
  7.   RE: Nicolas 04:30  |  hmpierson 02/07/08
  8.   Gee Bradley! That`s A Hard Question! 07:06  |  Yosemite 02/07/08
  9.   Jesus... 07:41  |  Yosemite 02/07/08
  10.   Nicoles the Psycho; JESUS WAS A JEW! 07:43  |  Palestiniansaremyth 02/07/08
  11.   Jesus would tell the Palestinians to love their neighbours 09:56  |  x-ray 02/07/08
  12.   Jesus wouldn`t have accepted the corruption of the Palestinians 10:01  |  x-ray 02/07/08
  13.   Jesus: Jewish Freedom fighter 13:40  |  Jeff 02/07/08
  14.   Here is the Best answer to the question... 14:31  |  augustine e johnson 02/07/08
  15.   Jesus Peace and Israel 20:35  |  John Isenhower 02/07/08
  16.   Unlike the Presbyterians, 21:05  |  Pssd Off American 02/07/08
  17.   Oh, for goodness` sake... 01:22  |  Michael Steiner 03/07/08
  18.   jack 6 02:39  |  potobac 03/07/08
  19.   #10 02:43  |  potobac 03/07/08
  20.   Demands for "Palestine state" didn`t begin until 1967. 04:52  |  Chaim 03/07/08
  21.   H M Pierson #7 you should not compare apples and apples 07:13  |  Monitor 03/07/08
  22.   One Question Jesus would ask? 07:17  |  Monitor 03/07/08
  23.   Odd that you assume Jesus would be a Jew 10:58  |  Colin Wright 03/07/08
  24.   Peace, motherhood and apple pie... 11:15  |  Joe 03/07/08
  25.   Reply to # 2 Was Jesus an anti-Semite? 11:20  |  Joseph 03/07/08
  26.   Jesus and Mohammed 11:24  |  Sherlock Holmes 03/07/08
  27.   The Second Coming 11:29  |  Ben Azai 03/07/08
  28.   Colin Wright 15:01  |  x-ray 03/07/08
  29.   There was no Palestine at time of Jesus 17:51  |  Boris 03/07/08
  30.   There was no Palestine at time of Jesus 17:51  |  Boris 03/07/08
  31.   Jesus was fighting for liberation of Jewish homeland from Romans 18:19  |  Boris 03/07/08
  32.   Jesus was fighting for liberation of Jewish homeland from Romans 18:19  |  Boris 03/07/08
  33.   Jesus was fighting for liberation of Jewish homeland from Romans 18:19  |  Boris 03/07/08
  34.   He would say - LET MY PEOPLE BE 18:22  |  Boris 03/07/08
  35.   He would say - LET MY PEOPLE BE 18:23  |  Boris 03/07/08
  36.   He would say - LET MY PEOPLE BE 18:23  |  Boris 03/07/08
  37.   to # 26 and 27 Yeah, land w/o people for people w/o land!!! 18:46  |  Monitor 03/07/08
  38.   Boris, Jesus was looking to being accepted as the Messiah 18:50  |  Monitor 03/07/08
  39.   western judeo-christian ignorant cruelty keeps on comming 23:03  |  Charlie 03/07/08
  40.   Colin, #23 23:50  |  Nicolas 03/07/08
  41.   As a Catholic sometimes I fell the Jesus in me 00:19  |  Yaakov Sullivan 04/07/08
  42.   To Nicholas #40 `Colin` 03:26  |  Colin Wright 04/07/08
  43.   It`s obvious... 08:32  |  Dave 04/07/08
  44.   Colin, #40 18:57  |  nicomonasterio@yahoo 04/07/08
  45.   To mrs. #6, #7 and #10 19:07  |  Nicolas 04/07/08
  46.   answer to #28 19:09  |  Nicolas 04/07/08
  47.   After Israel completes its separation from PA 22:43  |  Rick & TC 05/07/08
  48.   to the poisonous "monitor" lizard on #37 06:38  |  Shmuelshachor 06/07/08
  49.   To # 20 Read your history books 08:21  |  Tom Clark 06/07/08
  50.   Jesus would not have caved 23:40  |  Robert 06/07/08
  51.   West Bank settlers tie Palestinian man to phone pole and beat him 23:42  |  Robert 06/07/08
  52.   Woe to those who make unjust laws 23:52  |  Robert 06/07/08
  53.   Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field 23:59  |  Robert 06/07/08
  54.   Take care of my sheep Peter/Church.John 21:16 13:18  |  Simon 07/07/08
  55.   Who are the Jesus sheep that the Church(Peter)needs to take care 13:57  |  Simon 07/07/08
  56.   BFD 14:27  |  Shtarka 07/07/08
  57.   Vote? He didn`t even exist? 15:53  |  JMK 31/07/08
 Read & React
Olmert: I'll quit once new Kadima leader chosen
Responses: 114
ANALYSIS / Crushed and battered, Olmert finally broke
Responses: 39
Gideon Levy: Top IDF officer should be tried for mass killing, not petty ATV incident
Responses: 54
Hamas' Christian convert: I've left a society that sanctifies terror
Responses: 123
Editorial: Holocaust survivors should march on Yad Vashem
Responses: 4
Rosner's Domain