UCC boycott decision

ANDY LEVY-AJZENKOPF CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Canadian Jewish community organizations expressed outrage last week at the United Church of Canada’s Aug. 15 decision to adopt a resolution calling for a boycott of products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The boycott motion, put forward at the church’s 41st general council taking place in Ottawa that week and ending on Aug. 19, stemmed from a report by its Working Group on Israel Palestine Policy.

The report, released in May after two years of consultations and visits by the group’s members to both Israel and the West Bank, calls on the church to boycott all products made in West Bank settlements but stopped short of asking for a total boycott of all Israeli goods. A final vote on the settlement boycott took place on Aug. 17.

The United Church is Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, with an estimated 525,000 members and 2.8 million adherents, according to figures from the church and Statistics Canada.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said they were furious with both the church’s adoption of the boycott motion as well as its expression of regret for previously calling for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s Jewish character. Members of CIJA were on hand at the general council to advocate for the dismissal of the working group’s report.

According to CIJA, the boycott decision represents a radical shift in the United Church’s policies, betrays the views of the vast majority of its members and flies in the face of decades of constructive interfaith dialogue. In a statement, CIJA chair David Koschitzky, said the church had chosen a “morally reckless path.”

“The United Church has equally dismissed the concerns of the overwhelming majority of the Canadian Jewish community [and its own members]. No mainstream Jewish organization, including Canadian Friends of Peace Now, endorses boycott. Even the leadership of the American left-wing group J Street has publicly condemned boycotts as counterproductive,” he said.

However, a July 5 letter to the CJN by Stephen Scheinberg, co-chair of Canadian Friends of Peace Now, noted his organization’s support of the church’s call for a boycott of settlement products and said CIJA was “out of line” in defending the “settlement enterprise.”

In his letter, Scheinberg said his organization congratulates the church on eschewing the broader boycott, sanctions and divestment movement, which continually “assaults the legitimacy of Israel” and its democratic nature. Focusing on the boycott of settlement products only means the church has “taken a moderate and responsible position,” Scheinberg wrote. “Peace Now joined the settlement boycott after the Knesset made it illegal to advocate such actions and subject [them] to civil damages.”

CIJA said an independent survey it commissioned in partnership with a grassroots group within the United Church, Faithful Witness, revealed the extent to which the new policy is at odds with the views of the majority of the church’s congregants.

CIJA’s chief executive officer, Shimon Fogel, said the survey was shared with all church clergy and with the commissioners at the general council in an attempt to convince them the report was wrongheaded.

“The church’s decision to support boycott in full knowledge of these survey results confirms the extent to which this decision was driven by narrow ideology rather than by a desire to faithfully represent the views of the membership,” CIJA said in a statement.

“Support for the boycott tactic is limited to a small fringe. Tragically, the United Church of Canada chose to join that fringe, rather than listen to the nearly 100,000 families who are members of Jewish federations across Canada, and on whose behalf [we] speak. The church equally ignored some 70 Canadian rabbis of all streams and from every province, representing tens of thousands of Canadian Jewish families, who made their opposition known in writing,” Koschitzky said.

In June, nine Canadian senators, all United Church members, sent a joint letter to the church’s moderator, Mardi Tindal, warning her that a deep schism between the Jewish and Protestant communities could emerge if the church adopted the controversial boycott proposal. Their request was rebuffed by both Tindal and the head of the church’s Working Group on Israel Palestine Policy, Rev. Bruce Gregersen.

Koschitzky said that, in adopting a boycott policy, the United Church “has rejected the path of balance and has chosen to explicitly ally itself with those who formally reject the two-state solution and who deny the historical right of the Jewish people to a homeland. In so doing, they have damaged the church’s standing amongst Canadians and have profoundly compromised its ability to play any constructive role in making a positive impact for peace.”

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) said it, too, was troubled to learn that the proposed anti-Israel boycott had passed. FSWC president and chief executive officer Avi Benlolo said he was “saddened” and “distressed” by the decision.

“We … fear a relationship of trust and friendship is irreparably broken,” he said. “I don’t know if church members truly understand how utterly offensive and imbalanced this proposal is, or whether a latent antisemitism within the church is slowly coming back to life. What is certain is that the era of good will … is over and that the supporters of antisemitic hatred have found a new friend.”

At its 2009 general council, the church adopted policy items that called for full Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 lines, recognition of east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories and “ending all forms of violence by the Israeli government upon the Palestinian people.” The church, however, voted down a proposal for boycott, divestment and sanctions, in part after lobbying efforts by Canadian Jewish Congress.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

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