Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

October 2004

by Harold M. Schulweis

The Reverend Doug Huneke is one of our people's great Christian friends in our time. I do not regard myself as an alarmist. To the contrary, I look for the goodness of humanity and am inspired by the most consequential verse in the Bible, the one that asserts that every single human being, whatever belief, race, ethnicity or gender, is created with a Divine potentiality that reflects the image of God.

I fought against the understandable but self-defeating claim that allows anti-Semitism to become the major psychic reality in our lives. Inadvertently this perception of anti-Semitism as the dominant psychic reality in our lives eclipses whatever is noble in our past and darkens the prospects of a brighter future.

But recent events of such magnitude and such pervasiveness can only be ignored at our own peril. "Never again" was more for us than an oath. It was a promise and a prayerful prophecy. Regretfully, anti-Semitism has surfaced in the guise of anti-Zionism, and like the definition of anti-Semitism, something that is more than absolutely necessary, anti-Zionism has taken its place. Israel simply can do no right. Whether it enters into negotiation and promises to cede huge territories to adversaries who lost a war, whether it pledges the removal of Israeli settlements or builds a wall to safeguard its people from homicidal suicide, Israel can do no right.

A virulent anti-Semitic anti-Zionism has seeped into European nations, infiltrated academic campuses and contaminated the radical left. Most recently, it has even reached the highest pulpit.

I refer to the most recent revelations of contempt and demonization of the State of Israel and an unsympathetic view of the Jews that found its way last June into the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which issued four major resolutions. It includes divesting the denominations portfolio of certain firms doing business with Israel, condemns the wall separating the West Bank and Gaza, condemns Christian Zionism and supports active missionizing of Jews.

It was dispiriting news, but while brooding over that blow to Christian-Jewish relationships I received a telephone call and a statement that moved me to tears. The author of that statement and the caller of that telephone call was a Christian colleague and friend, Reverend Doug Huneke, the pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tibuton, California. He is not a "Johnnie-come-lately" friend of our people, but a distinguished author of a remarkable book called The Moses of Rovno, which deals with one of the great rescuers of Jews, Herman Graebe.

I believe it is important for us the hear the statement of Doug Huneke, which was addressed to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and appeared in the Westminster Newsletter:

Dear Presbyterian Friends,

The June meeting of the General Assembly passed four resolutions on Israel, Jews, conversion and Zionism. The following article will appear in the September issue of the Westminster newsletter. I share it with the hope that you will join a group of us now forming to protest all four action and actively seek the reversal of the divestment recommendation.

Doug Huneke, Pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Tiburon, California

A Personal Reflection on General Assembly actions on Israel, and the Practice of Conversion

I have devoted almost my entire professional career to fostering interfaith understanding, respect and cooperation. In recent years I feel that I have exhausted my soul trying to balance a deep desire for this part of my calling with decisions and actions at the highest levels of the denomination that result in diametrically opposite outcomes. At the General Assembly (GA) meeting in June, delegates voted to move toward having the General Assembly Mission Council selectively divest the denomination's portfolio of certain firms doing business with Israel (i.e. the Caterpillar Corporation because the government of Israel allegedly uses its machines to destroy the homes of terrorists) by 2005, to condemn the wall separating the West Bank and Gaza, condemning Christian Zionism (and by the choice of words, indirectly castigating Zionism or the restoration of a Jewish homeland), and to support active missionizing of Jews.

As most of my friends in the rabbinic community, I struggle with many of the decisions of the Israeli government. Like most people in the world, I do not see an easy solution to the crisis that besets the Palestinians and the Israelis. I have a hard time with the existence of and the suffering in the refugee camps. And I am outraged by the genocidal madness of the terrorists who target Jewish civilians. Still, I passionately hold the hope that a just peace (in governance and territory) can be crafted between Israelis and Palestinians, and I resist believing that such hope will not be realized in my lifetime. I hold my fragile hope and prayer in spite of the intentions of radical Islamic groups and related terrorist organizations that have vowed to settle for nothing less than the complete destruction of Jews started by Hitler, and the destruction of the State of Israel.

The actions of the GA regarding divestment and the wall are clearly ill-informed, provocative, and a reflection of the confluence of two dangerous streams: first, in our denomination the trend to take decisions that are grounded in political correctness facts and nuances be damned-and, globally, a wave of actions beginning with the Durban Ant-Racism Conference in 2001 that continue to seek to de-legitimize and marginalize Israel.

Regarding the security wall that is being built to separate Palestinians and Israelis, the General Assembly failed to recognize two critically important truths: first, that the decision was a nationally regretted action-of-Iast resort and second, that with its construction there has been a profound decrease in terrorist acts against Israeli citizens-the wall is doing what it was intended to do: isolate terrorists and deny them unfettered access to commit their murderous crimes. Our nation has its provocative wall going up along the frontier between Mexico and the US, but the General Assembly has not suggested that the denomination's portfolio be divested of firms building our wall. the debate rhetoric at GA resounded with ignorantly dangerous and inflammatory comparisons of Israel to Apartheid South Africa-there is no truth in such rhetoric, but the damage was done even though the final resolutions did not use such language.

This denomination carefully divested its portfolio during the crisis in South Africa, but it has done little else of such magnitude in this risky venue since. For instance, it has not called for divestment of firms doing business in China, one of the world's worst offenders of human and religious rights, and we've not taken divestment actions against nuclear N. Korea or Iran, and not against Sudan for Durfur (with one exception before Darfur reached the headlines). We have not divested ourselves of firms doing business in Saudi Arabia (remember where the 9/11 hijackers came from and where the bin Laden funding has found favor and laundering). The action against Israel is selectively discriminatory, provocative and harmful. One does not need to do more than scratch the surface to determine the animus of those who promoted this action.

This denomination has consistently and mildly decried violence in the Middle East. It has not, to my knowledge, however, forcefully and publicly condemned Mr. Arafat, the arguable leader of the Palestinian Authority (arguable given the displeasure of the Palestinian population with his style of corrupt, violent, and dishonest leadership) nor the heinous crimes of the various terrorist groups operating in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. What our leaders have done is offer weak support of Israel's right to exist and expressed concern for refugees but remained frail in its stand against the genocidal, anti-Israel, anti-United States terrorists.

Regarding missionizing Jews, the GA took a frail and arguably meaningless stand that did not condemn actively seeking the conversion of Jews to Christianity. And, it also did not suspend funding of so-called Messianic Fellowships (they give every appearance of being synagogues thereby dishonestly drawing potential converts) that are using new church development monies to exist and expand their work of conversion. We cannot have it both ways. But this action was a tip of the hat to the evangelical wing of the denomination. One wonders about vote trading between the politically correct liberals and the evangelical wing of the church-strange bedfellows to say the least.

On one level, the vote against Christian Zionism was good news. Christian Zionists need all of the Jews scattered around the world to take up residence in Israel. Arguable, once the Diaspora is complete the Messiah will culminate history, sending the "unsaved" to eternal damnation while the "saved" claim their eternal reward. Most Christian Zionists love Israel conditionally and treat Israel as an object to achieve their theological ends. The GA action is bad news because, in very nuanced language, it challenges the right of Israel to exist as a state. Once again, we cannot have it both ways.

There are certainly a number of people who are cultural and religious anti-Semites in our denomination. Most of our leaders and our denomination, generally, are not anti-Semitic, however, the effect of these kinds of actions is anti-Semitic. Such actions encourage the evil terrorism of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and most certainly the likes of groups supported by bin Ladin that exist only to annihilate Jews and Israel. What we have in the recent votes of the GA are shortsighted, ill-informed, and unstudied actions that turn traitor on the firm stand of an earlier GA (1987) to "never gain participate in, or contribute to, or (insofar as we are able) to allow the persecution or denigration of Jews." This GA has given aid and comfort to terrorism and encouraged it with gutless resolutions that satisfy the bureaucracy's need to appear to be politically correct.

This constant flow of political correctness (Cuba, Elian Gonzales, Communism generally, etc.) led Westminster's Session to withhold funds from the National and World Councils of Churches. With both sadness and outrage, if the GA C moves forward with divestment recommendations in '05, the day will finally and regrettably come when I will ask the Session to publicly divest this congregation of its significant annual contribution to all judicatories of this denomination (presbytery, synod, and general assembly). In the meantime, I shall recommend to the Session that all funds (General Mission and Per Capita) earmarked in '05 for any and all Presbyterian judicatories be placed in a trust account pending the report to GAC and any resulting actions.

The recognition of goodness (Hakarat Hatov) remains a significant mitzvah, especially in our parlous times. Reverend Huneke heartens us all.

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