THE COMMISSION of Anglican and Jewish leaders, organised as a joint project of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, held its first meeting last month in Jerusalem.Led by the Bishop of Clogher, the Rt Rev Michael Jackson and Chief Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen of Haifa, the Commission met in Jerusalem from July 1-2 to define the parameters of dialogue between Anglicans and Jews, and to help ease tensions inflamed by decisions taken by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and General Synod in recent years.
While stopping short of a full divestment call, the ACC at its meeting in Nottingham in 2005 commended US investment strategies to take appropriate action where it finds its corporate investments support the occupation of Palestinian lands or violence against innocent Israelis.
While rejecting a strongly worded condemnation of Israel from the Anglican Peace and Justice Network after the intervention of Archbishop Rowan Williams and the Dean of St Paul’s, Dr John Moses, the ACC endorsed ethical investment strategies that “support the infrastructure of a future Palestinian state."
Relations were further strained by General Synod’s 2006 decision to call for divestment from companies whose products were used by the Israel government in the Territories -- a decision that prompted Lord Carey to say he was “ashamed to be an Anglican.”
Seeking to repair the breach, Dr Williams met with the Chief Rabbis of Israel at Lambeth Palace on Sept 6 and created a dialogue commission to find areas of common accord, where “we seek only to understand each other better and to strengthen our own communities and their affection and respect for each other".
Following the Jerusalem meeting, Chief Rabbi Cohen said: "this dialogue is of the greatest importance both for our bilateral relationship and for promoting our shared values to the benefit of humanity at large".
Papers on the Jewish and Anglican views of the sanctity of human life were presented at the Jerusalem meeting.
In a statement released after the meeting, Bishop Jackson said, “our understandings of the sources of the sanctity of human life lie in our shared Scriptural heritage.“For Christians a further supreme source of such understanding lies in the life of Jesus and in his resurrection. For Anglicans, these concepts have been developed in particular ways through the use of tradition and reason applied to the Scriptures,” he said.
A second meeting is planned for the spring of 2008.
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