A private meeting has taken place at the home of the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev. Nigel McCulloch, with Jewish leaders in an attempt to heal the rift between the Church of England and the Jewish community.
A summit was also held recently in London between leading Christian and Jewish organisations looking to find points of reconciliation.The Church of England Newspaper reported that in a statement released by the Diocese of Manchester, Bishop McCulloch and three other bishops met with the 8-member Jewish delegation, headed by Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag, on March 8.
The two delegations had a “full and frank discussion”, according to the statement, of the recent at the General Synod for disinvestment from Caterpillar.
Rabbi Guttentag previously wrote to Bishop McCulloch expressing the grave concern of the Jewish community in Britain over the call.
“They interpret it as indicating that the Church, with its millennial history of ill-treatment of the Jewish people, finds it easy to take up a hostile and biased position against the Jewish people,” the letter read.
Participants also told The Church of England Newspaper that Bishop Lowe defended during the meeting comments he previously made on the reaction of the Jewish community to the disinvestment vote.
Bishop Lowe admitted on the BBC’s Radio Sunday programme on Feb. 19 that he found the reaction to the disinvestment debate in last month’s Synod “a little bit over the top”.
He said: “I do find it difficult that if you criticise anything to do with the Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians one is accused of anti-Semitism. I think that’s actually wrong.”Bishop McCulloch was accompanied in the meeting by the Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Middleton, the Rt Rev Michael Lewis, and the Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Rev David Gillett.
Participants in the key meeting acknowledged that while the meeting was a considerable first step in rebuilding the damaged relations between the two churches, there was still much more work to be done.
The recent London meeting brought together representatives of Anglicans for Israel, Christian Friends of Israel, the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, as well as the Council of Christians and Jews.
Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board, commended members of the Jewish community working to build better relations between Anglicans and Jews in the UK.
He said the meeting was “incredibly positive” but also “one which flagged up the challenges ahead”.
“This was an incredibly positive meeting, but one which flagged up the challenges ahead. As a community we must rise to those challenges and work hard with our Christian friends to address them.”
The Council of Christians and Jews commented: “It is vital for us to work together to promote positive and constructive responses that will help Israelis and Palestinians make genuine progress towards a peaceful settlement.”
