Letter sent to over 100 delegates to the Presbyterian Church USA Convention.

The following is a letter sent by email to over 100 delegates to this July’s Presbyterian Church USA Convention.

The resolution that the the PCUSA is considering is filled with bad theology and seeks to delegitmize and demonize Israel.

Dear --------------,

Here in Greensboro, there are wonderful relations between our local Jewish community and the Presbyterian Church. For many years, Temple Emanuel was located across the street from First Presbyterian Church. As a matter of fact, during the depression, our congregation lent money to First Presbyterian Church to finish its sanctuary. Because of this friendship, there is actually a six pointed Jewish star in one of the stained glass windows of the church.

During the past fifteen years that I have served Temple Emanuel of Greensboro, I have traveled to the Middle East with Presbyterian ministers who to this day I consider to be close friends. I only have the greatest respect for the Presbyterian Church and its important role in our country in general and in North Carolina specifically. I write to you as one who firmly believes in a two state solution to the Middle East crisis. I envision and pray for the day when there will be two states, an Israel and a Palestine, living side by side in security and mutual cooperation and respect.

I write to you in the spirit of friendship and genuine respect. Our community is profoundly concerned about matters that will come before the PCUSA General Assembly in July 2010, including a one-sided and factually flawed Middle East Study Committee (MESC) report, a call to denounce an American company for its sales to Israel, and endorsement of the virulently anti-Israel Kairos Palestine document.

In our opinion, the MESC report is an egregious diatribe against Israel. It makes highly selective use of sacred texts, historical events, and current realities to build a narrative against the Jewish state. Its recommendations are extremely biased against Israel. There are more than a dozen demands placed on Israel and the United States for policies supporting Israel. The few recommendations for Palestinian reforms are generally paired with additional demands on Israel.

While the nine-person MESC was supposed to represent a diverse range of perspectives, most of the committee was squarely aligned with a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel narrative. Most of the individuals with whom the MESC met have been critical of Israel.

The report is insulting to the mainstream Jewish Community. It outrageously admonishes the American Jewish mainstream community to "catch up" with American Jewish groups of which it approves, namely Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), B'Tselem, and JStreet. The MESC met only briefly with one representative of a mainstream American Jewish organization. Had the MESC opened itself to a meaningful dialogue with the mainstream Jewish community, it might have learned that JVP is an anti-Israel group from far outside the mainstream - one that refuses to endorse a two-state solution and one that welcomes anti-Zionist Jews. B'Tselem isn't even an American group. JStreet issued a statement that it was never consulted by the MESC, finds the MESC report troubling and unfair, strongly objects to the MESC findings, and is dismayed that the MESC used JStreet as "political cover" for the report.

This report places inordinate blame on Israel for the conflict, without due appreciation for the extent of the physical threats - both rhetoric and deeds - that its people face. As much so, the singling out for censure or punitive measures of businesses engaged with one side to one complex conflict is highly counterproductive. Frankly, in the words of Yossi Beilin, the eminent peace activist who helped craft the Geneva Accords, "Narratives and activism that appear to target Israelis or exclude recognition of any of Israel's positive contributions to peace only make the people of my country, including the most progressive and moderate of us, feel isolated, insecure and less capable of encouraging the kinds of concessions and risks for peace that I have long strongly advocated."http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=2788

I would like for you to learn more about this by looking at the following:

1. "Pastoral Letter in Response to MESC Report on the Middle East" Found at: http://www.pcjcr.org/letter.htm Among the signatories to this statement is the Rev. Dr. John Buchanan, Senior Pastor of Chicago's historic Fourth Presbyterian Church and a former Moderator of the PCUSA. Rev. Buchanan has served as the Editor and Publisher of The Christian Century.

2. "Habits of anti-Judaism - Critiquing a PCUSA report on Israel/Palestine" By Ted A. Smith and Amy-Jill Levine in the June 29th 2010 edition of the Christian Century. Ted A. Smith and Amy-Jill Levine teach at one of my alma maters, the Vanderbilt Divinity School. This exceptional piece of scholarship may be found at: http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8539

3. The two part analysis of the Kairos Palestine Document Found at: http://www.christianfairwitness.com/

The Presbyterian Church is a great and lofty church which does have a real role to play in the pursuit of Middle East peace that all of us desire so deeply. Adopting a biased position in favor of one side to this conflict will only lessen the ability of the church to be a real force for reconciliation.

Together friends, let us pray for peace! Let us pray however as if everything depended upon God, but act as if everything depended upon us. In the field of action, the MESC report is a step in the wrong direction and should be dismissed. Truly by working together with both Israelis and Palestinians, working as Jews, Christians and Muslims, we can indeed bring closer the day envisioned by Isaiah when, "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore."

Shalom, Salaam, Peace,

Rabbi Fred GuttmanM.H.L., M.Ed., D. Div