SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER DENOUNCES LEADERSHIP OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) FOR WITHDRAWING STATEMENT ON ANTISEMITISM

Center officials also urge PCUSA to censure members who meet with Hezbollah and other terrorist groups

The Simon Wiesenthal Center strongly criticized the leadership of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for its betrayal of the Jewish community by rescinding a ground-breaking document that had condemned anti-Semitism just before this week’s PCUSA General Assembly in San Jose, CA.

The document, entitled “Vigilance against Anti-Jewish Ideas and Bias” was released on the PCUSA website last month and was praised by Jewish organizations, including the Wiesenthal Center, who have been alarmed at the recent number of anti-Israel proposals to Church policy. However, the document was revised to change the focus to Presbyterian responsibility in the Middle East. The new document, which added the subheading, “In Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace” deleted all references to missteps of PCUSA, labeled Israel the oppressor, and treated anti-Semitism as a side bar.

“The leadership of this church either doesn’t understand the clear and present danger of anti-Semitism, or lacks the moral fiber to take an unequivocal stand against anti-Semitism and anti-Semites despite whatever developments emanate from the ongoing Middle East dispute,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper associate Dean of the Center. In the past few days alone World Jewry has been shaken by new anti-Jewish violence in France where in Paris, a seventeen year-old Jew wearing a yarmulke was beaten into a coma by five youths. Additionally, intelligence reports of renewed threats of terrorist attacks by Hezbollah against Jewish houses of worship in Canada have been released. “This is a time we need our friends to stand up and be counted,” Cooper urged.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Center’s Director of Interfaith Affairs, speaking at an open session at the General Assembly said, “Anti-Semitism is history's oldest hate and a contemporary moral challenge to concerned Christians and others. To link its condemnation to policies or actions of governments is an abomination.”

Rabbis Cooper and Adlerstein directed a plea to the Assembly delegates to prevail over the misguided moves of a small cadre of Israel-haters in their church, as the majority did in 2006 when PCUSA rejected moves calling for divestment from Israel. They urged that their many friends within PCUSA understand the special place that Israel ­ now home to the largest Jewish community in the world ­ has in the hearts of the overwhelming majority of Jews, and vote against a slew of imbalanced overtures hostile to the existence of the Jewish State. They called for measures that would censure groups within PCUSA which meet with terrorist organizations like Hezbollah as several national and regional groups had in the past.

Rabbi Adlerstein is in San Jose and can be reached at 213-841-3567.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.