Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

British Jews Complain About Anti-Israel Cleric

The Jewish umbrella body in Britain lodged a complaint with church officials about an Anglican vicar whom they accuse of anti-Semitic speech.

Stephen Sizer

The Board of Deputies of British Jews filed the complaint against Reverend Stephen Sizer in connection with content that appeared on his website, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.

Sizer, a senior pastor of the Anglican Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey, has twice altered his website after linking to sites which promote Holocaust denial and Zionist conspiracy theories, the Chronicle reported.

Sizer denied allegations that he was anti-Semitic, the paper wrote.

This is the first time the Board of Deputies lodged a formal complaint with the Church of England against a clergymen, according to the paper.

The complaint, the paper said, will likely trigger action under a disciplinary process set out by Parliament.

The claims are being investigated by the Bishop of Guildford, the Right Reverend Christopher Hill.

A dossier of evidence charts what the Board says is antisemitic material which Rev. Sizer has posted online or passed to contacts in the last two-and-a-half years.

The Community Security Trust, British Jewry’s watchdog group on anti-Semitism and hate crime, and the Jewish Leadership Council have backed the Board’s complaint, which was put together following legal advice on canon law.

Board president Vivian Wineman said: “This action sends a clear, strong message from our community that we will not remain quiet in the face of actions and remarks capable of being seen as antisemitic even where they are disguised as anti-Zionist attacks on Israel.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.