Consultative Document on
Israel
Committee on Episcopal-Jewish Relations
The
Episcopal Diocese of
New
York
“
Israel
is young, and I have loved
him…” (Hosea 11:1)
God’s commitment to God’s people endures forever.
The deepest of arguments divides Christianity and Judaism when they define who
God’s people are. Divisive definitions reach within both religions, so that
the issue of
Israel
has proven to be controversial
for much of our common history.
The purpose
of dialogue is not to obscure these differences, but to articulate them.
Inter-faith discussion proceeds in the confidence that God, in God’s time,
determines the
Israel
that finally matters.
Until then,
the commitment to articulate our differences and our common ground expresses who
we are and where we can relate to those of other faiths. Theology can instruct
us in how to learn from diversity even as we affirm our core beliefs, and to
defuse opportunities for violence that beset religious difference.
In the
context of our theological work, the State of Israel permits us in differing
ways to clarify the relationship between God’s choice of
Israel
and historical communities that
claim succession to the promise of
Israel
. Use of the name by itself does
not make a community into God’s
Israel
. But when the United Nations
recognized the State of Israel, they did so to establish a national homeland for
the Jewish people. That determination to contradict the genocidal policy of the
Third Reich remains a moral imperative.
Israel
is humanity’s vessel of
salvation; the State of Israel is a ship of rescue for Jews in peril.
The State of
Israel answers to the peoples of the world as other nations do. Its agreement to
a national homeland for the Palestinian people contiguous with the State of
Israel represents a hopeful development. During the negotiations and struggles
to achieve lasting peace, this committee wishes to affirm the right of the State
of Israel to exist and to prosper with all its neighbors in the international
community. Church-sponsored programs to disinvest from
Israel
impede efforts towards a
peaceful settlement by undermining the perceived legitimacy of a sovereign.
Worse, they give the appearance of supporting Christian antipathy towards the
Jewish people. The adoption of such a policy would reverse hard-won gains by a
generation of inter-faith scholarship and dialogue.
The
Rev. Dr Bruce Chilton, chair
Rector
and Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion
The
Church
of
St John
the Evangelist and
Bard
College
Bob
Cohen
Cantor,
Temple
Emanuel
in
Kingston
Chair
,
Ulster
County
Religious
Council
The
Rev. Curt Hart
Director
of Pastoral Care & Education
New York
Presbyterian
Hospital
The
Rev. Stephen C. Holton
Rector,
St Paul
’s-on-the-Hill
Patricia
McKay
Psychoanalyst,
Manhattan
Member,
The Church of St John the Evangelist
Rabbi
Jacob Neusner
Research
Professor of Theology and Senior Fellow
The
Institute of Advanced Theology at
Bard
College