Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Presbyterians Seek To Disavow Anti-Israel Report

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) reiterated its support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in response to controversy over the publication of a Presbyterian study guide that rejects Zionism.

“Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) policy calls for a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine and the right for each to exist within secure and recognized borders,” the mainline Protestant denomination said in a statement.

“The church has condemned acts of violence on both sides of the conflict, as well as the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlement,” the statement continues. “Our church has categorically condemned anti-Semitism in all its forms, including the refusal to acknowledge the legal existence of the State of Israel. At the same time, we believe that condemnation of injustices perpetrated in the name of the State of Israel, including the violation of human rights, does not constitute anti-Semitism.”

The statement comes in the wake of expressions of outrage by Jewish groups at “Zionism Unsettled,” a publication last month of the church’s Israel Palestine Mission Network.

The study guide posits that a “pathology inherent in Zionism” drives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rejects theologies — including Jewish theology — that uphold Zionism.

The church says that the network advises the church but does not set its policy.

“The independent group — which speaks to the church and not for the church — recently published a study guide, Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study,” the church’s statement said. “The guide is intended to prompt discussion on the ever-changing and tumultuous issue of Israel-Palestine. The IPMN booklet was neither paid for nor published by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”

But Ethan Felson, a vice president at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for Jewish public policy groups, rejected this explanation. He noted that IPMN is not a separate tax-exempt group and that the church processes contributions to IPMN.

“They charter IPMN, they speak to IPMN, they speak at the IPMN annual conference, they recommend people get involved in IPMN, they take contributions to IPMN, and when they’re challenged, then they say it does not speak for the church,” he said, referring to the church leadership.

Near its conclusion, the church’s new statement quotes the advocacy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Sydney Levy, saying, “We are in opposition to the settlements and occupation, and in favor of a true and just peace.” The JVP staffer is the only Jewish person quoted in the church’s statement.

JVP has had an acrimonious relationship with the mainstream Jewish community because it does not specify whether it supports a two-state solution and allies itself with groups that advocate boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts targeting Israel.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  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.