11 Heshvan 5768 23 October 2007

I feel compelled to share with you, and all of the members of Temple Israel, an open letter that I have written to Reverend Nancy Taylor of Old South Church. Before you read the letter, I want to share the context. Reverend Taylor and the Council of Old South have chosen to rent space in their building for a conference conducted by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center of Jerusalem on October 26 and 27. The keynote speaker for the conference is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is identified as an "International Patron" of the organization. Sabeel is identified by Reverend Taylor as a "partner" of the United Church of Christ (and, therefore, of Old South Church).

I believe (and I hope that you agree) that we must be ever vigilant to protest against anti-Semitism in whatever form it appears. My investigation of this organization, Sabeel, leads me to a clear conclusion that it is anti-Jewish in its rhetoric and devoted to the demonization of Israel. I have asked Reverend Taylor how we are to understand her intentions and those of the Council of Old South in this matter.

For your information, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the parent organization of our Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, has issued this overview on Sabeel:

"Sabeel: The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian organization based in Jerusalem that advocates for 'solidarity with the Palestinian people.' Sabeel seeks to build a critical mass of Christian influentials who will speak to Israel's culpability for the Palestinian condition.

Narrative: Sabeel documents speak of the formation of the state of Israel as 'original sin.' Israel is cast in purely colonial terms, a result of European post-Holocaust intervention. Virtually no mention is made of any continued Jewish presence in the land. The Palestinian refugee issue is described as resulting from Israeli 'ethnic cleansing.' Sabeel denigrates Israeli efforts at peacemaking including the offers made at Camp David in 2000 and the Gaza disengagement. The flight of Christians from the territories is framed only as a result of Israeli actions; no responsibility is placed on Arab or Palestinian leaders or actions.

Policies: Sabeel expresses a preference for a one-state solution, although it endorses, as a less optimal answer, a two-state solution. Sabeel condemns terrorism, but goes to great lengths to explain why it feels Israeli actions invite terrorism. Sabeel broadly condemns almost all Israeli security measures.

Theology: Sabeel advances 'Palestinian Liberation Theology,' interpreting Christian sacred texts to portray Palestinians as inherently innocent, Israelis as almost exclusively culpable for Palestinian suffering, and creating a theological imperative to advance a pro-Palestinian advocacy agenda. The language used by several Sabeel leaders embraces supersessionism, also known as 'replacement theology,' which rejects a continued Jewish covenantal relationship with God.

Language: Sabeel uses theologically-loaded language such as comparing Palestinians to Christ, and Israelis to those who crucified Christ. Sabeel characterizes Israeli security measures as a 'pagan god' and the occupation as the 'stone placed on the entrance of Jesus' tomb.'

Activities: Sabeel advocates for targeted divestment of companies operating in Israel, routinely draws parallels between Israel and South African Apartheid, and vociferously attacks Christian Zionism.

Leaders: Sabeel was founded by Rev. Naim Ateek, who along with other Sabeel speakers (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish) - including Rev. Donald Wagner, Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Huwaida Arraf, and Jeffrey Halper - have long track records of criticizing, in the harshest terms possible, both Israel and Zionism.

Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA) is the domestic group that supports Sabeel regional educational conferences, missions, and international gatherings."

I regret that the subject of this correspondence is not a more pleasant one, but hope that you will take the time to read my letter to Reverend Taylor.

With sincere appreciation,

Rabbi Ronne Friedman

Reverend Nancy Taylor Old South Church 645 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116

Dear Reverend Taylor,

Although we are on a first-name basis with one another and often work together on issues of justice, conscience and peace within our community, I've chosen to address you formally on this occasion as a symbol of the increased distance between us that is a result of your decision to host the upcoming Conference of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center at Old South Church.

As you have defended your decision from the pulpit of Old South and in the pages of the Jewish Advocate, you've spoken of Old South's longstanding history of promoting "civic debate." If it is truly your intention to promote civic debate and to do so in a manner that is open, honest and fair, then you have to be true to the expressed purpose of Old South's publicized series, "Getting Religion Right: Beyond Stereotypes and Statistics;" it is also incumbent upon you to offer thoughtful analysis of both sides of a complex issue rather than to defend a conference that promotes polemical attacks representing only one side of the story.

You have written admiringly of Archibishop Desmond Tutu and you have spoken of the UCC's partnership relationship with Sabeel. Although I share your admiration for Archbishop Tutu's courageous stand against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, I am also appalled by some of the stereotypes and prejudices that some of his words reveal. These statements are included in an address that he gave at a Conference co-sponsored by Sabeel and the Episcopal Archdiocese in Boston in April 2002:

"But you know as well as I do that somehow the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal, and to criticize it is immediately dubbed anti-Semitic as if the Palestinians were not Semitic. . .

People are scared in this country [USA] to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful, very powerful. Well, so what? This is God's world. For goodness sake, this is God's world. We live in a moral universe. The Apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosovik, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end, they bit the dust."(emphasis added)

Surely the appropriation of a noxious Judeophobic stereotype, the canard that Jews exercise mysterious and malevolent control of world affairs and governments (in this case, the suggestion that Jews can control the government of the United States), ought to be beneath the dignity of a Nobel Laureate. Having to continue to defend ourselves against such spurious charges and allusions is painful indeed. The implied conflation of the "Jewish lobby" in the U.S. with Apartheid South Africa and a catalogue of the worst villains of the last century from Hitler to Idi Amin is hardly an example of civic discourse. It is deliberately intended to provoke, to stigmatize and to demonize. It cannot inspire faith in your expressed intention to move beyond stereotypes. (By the way, the quote from Archbishop Tutu is published by Sabeel on its website.) I do not believe that Desmond Tutu is a Jew-hater, but it is clear that he is not free of subconscious prejudice.

How interesting it would have been had you invited Boston University Professor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel to speak opposite Desmond Tutu. Such a meeting between two distinguished international figures (each of whom seek to teach universal moral lessons by sharing the stories of their own personal and particular experience of suffering and oppression) might well have offered the opportunity for civic debate "both perilous and holy." Instead, you have chosen to host a conference in which only one voice will be heard.

And how should we Jews understand and characterize that voice? In your guest column in last week's Jewish Advocate, you identify Sabeel as "a Christian Palestinian organization advocating on behalf of the human rights of Palestinians, both Christian and Jewish." Sabeel may imagine itself as an advocate of Jews (I'll assume that the identification of "Jewish Palestinians" is just a slip), but no mainstream Jewish organization either here or in Israel would accept that description.

When we spoke on the telephone last week, you asked whether the characterizations of the writings of Naim Ateek, the Founder and Director of Sabeel that I cited, were found on Sabeel's website or had been offered by a third party. I can report to you that the following citations appear on Sabeel's website:

From his Easter sermon, April 2001:
"Here in Palestine Jesus is again walking the via dolorosa. . . In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull."

Here and elsewhere, Naim Ateek has used both explicit and implicit images that echo the New Testament polemic against the Jews, one that we've been forced to defend against for two millennia:

[Excerpted from Sabeel's publication, Cornerstone Issue 24, Spring 2002]

"I believe that any person who is unjustly condemned can be represented by Jesus who was unjustly condemned before the religious and political leaders of his day. By extension, this also applies to nations and whole peoples that are oppressed and condemned to death. Palestinians have been condemned as a nation by Israel, and sentenced to destruction. The accusations of people in power are strikingly similar throughout history to the charges leveled against Jesus in this city -- terrorist, evildoer, a rebel and and [sic] a subversive person. Palestinians are being crucified today for refusing to succumb to Israel's demand for greater concession on land. I realize how terrible and detrimental the suicide bombings have been, and we condemn them. But we know that they are not the cause of the conflict; they are instead the product of an evil and brutal occupation.

Palestinians are killed today because they refuse to agree to live under Israeli domination, under an Israeli system of apartheid that is worse than the apartheid practiced by South Africa."(emphasis added)

In November 2002, he preached a sermon in the chapel at Notre Dame entitled, "The Zionist Ideology of Domination Versus the Reign of God." Are these the ideas that you believe will promote civic discourse? How should my colleagues and I, my congregation and my community, respond to the rhetorical imagery of Sabeel's founder that revives the ancient New Testament charge of deicide against the Jews and clothes it in contemporary politics? How should we respond to the Christian Supersessionism that is consistently reflected in Naim Ateek's oratory?

An even more important question is how you imagine that a conference that addresses a complex conflict and reduces it to a battle between the forces of good (the Palestinians) and the forces of evil (the Israelis) could possibly contribute to civic debate. How do you expect me, my Temple Israel clergy partners and my community to respond?

I want to make it clear that there are many in the Jewish community (both here and in Israel) who are not inured to the suffering of the Palestinian people. The quest for peace and reconciliation in that troubled part of the world is the challenge and the responsibility of Muslims, Christians and Jews. I would assert that voices (whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim) that address only the perceived sins, failings and offenses of the "other" will never move us in the direction of peace.

A story: a great Hasidic rebbe was surrounded by his disciples, each of whom professed their love for the master. He turned to them and said: "Do you know what causes me pain?" The disciples were taken aback by the question for none knew the answer. The master then addressed them, "Do not imagine that you can love me without an understanding of what causes me pain." If Temple Israel of Boston, my clergy colleagues and I are included within the group of Jews whom you describe as "friends," then I would apply a similar litmus test. You can only claim friendship if you understand what causes us pain.

I share this letter with my congregation and hope that you will share it with your Council, for when you spoke at Old South, using as your text, Paul's letter to Philemon on September 9, 2007, you said,
"Part of what is so intriguing about Paul's letter is that this is no private correspondence between himself and the slave owner. He addresses his letter to the gathered church of which the slave owner is a member. This question of relationship and reconciliation, of inequality and the hope for equality, of past hurts and future behaviors, is no private matter. These are public affairs. Members and friends of Old South in Boston, just as Paul found himself standing between two friends - both of whom felt aggrieved, both of whom were sure they were in the right - so too, do we."

I am hopeful that we will speak with one another soon. When we do so, I hope that we will be able to renegotiate the terms of our relationship. At the moment, I do not see you "standing between two friends." Rather, I think that you have taken the position of those that you identify as your partners (Sabeel and Archbishop Tutu) at the expense of the Jewish community. In the words of Isaiah that we share as sacred, "Come let us reason together..." and let us pray that our reasoning will be for the sake of Heaven.

Until then, my wishes to you and the community of Old South for health and well-being,

Rabbi Ronne Friedman