Category Archives: Anglicans for Israel

Holocaust Remembrance

Anglicans for Israel, Christian Churches, General

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2007

Anglicans for Israel is joining with St Paul’s Church, Kersal in Salford for a special Holocaust Remembrance Day event, to which all are welcome.
This is on Saturday 27 January, 2-4 pm. Venue: St Paul’s Church, Moor Lane, Kersal Salford M7 (near Manchester).

St Paul’s will also feature remembrance of the Holocaust in its Sunday services on 28 January. The Rector of St Paul’s, The Revd Lisa Battye, is a Patron of AFI.

Please also support the campaign Learn from History for Holocaust Day during Holocaust Week.

Please register your support on their website.

Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury

Anglicans for Israel, Christian Churches

This letter was recently written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, by Frances Waddams, a Regional Director of Anglicans for Israel. This was just before the visit by Dr Williams to Bethlehem and his subsequent comments.

Dear Dr Williams

I enjoyed your recent interview in the Tablet and was particularly interested in your forthcoming pilgrimage to Bethlehem, and I hope and pray that it will be a fruitful one. But I thought your question, ”I would like to know how much it matters to the Israeli Government to have Christian communities in the Holy Land,” curious.

It suggests that the Israeli Government is ambivalent towards Christian communities in the Holy Land. Yet in Israel, Christian communities of all types are flourishing. For example, leaders of Messianic communities report that their relatively new congregations now have some 10,000 Messianic believers – the largest number of Jewish believers in Israel since Bible times. The Israeli constitution protects freedom of religion, which in itself is a confirmation of Israel’s commitment to its Christian minority.

So does your question refer to the Palestinian Church, and does it indicate that you believe that Israeli actions and policies constitute the sole threat to its continued existence? If so, this underlying assumption seems unjust. Well documented and long standing intimidation of Palestinian Christians by Palestinian Islamists poses at least as much of a threat to the Christian witness in the Territories as Israeli actions. It has resulted in a haemorrhage of Palestinian Christians from the PA, independently of hardship caused by the conflict with Israel. Sadly, Anglican leaders rarely mention this threat to the Church in the Holy Land when they give interviews or make public statements.

Would it not be helpful for you now publicly to affirm the freedom of religion given by Israel to her citizens, and to condemn both the intimidation of Palestinian Christians by Palestinian Muslims and the continuing attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians, which render it necessary for Israel to take action to defend their civilian population, which result in hardship for both Christian and Muslim Palestinians?

I look forward to receiving your observations. In the meantime, may I take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful 2007.

Yours sincerely

Frances Waddams
Regional Director, Anglicans for Israel

AFI welcomes agreement

Anglicans for Israel, Christian Churches, Religion

ANGLICANS FOR ISRAEL today welcomed the joint agreement between the Anglican Church and the Chief Rabbis of Israel as a great step forward to a new and happy concord between the Anglican Church and the Jewish people. AFI director Simon McIlwaine said:

“This is an historic agreement on a par with Nostra Aetate. The Communique is a clear rebuke and a resounding reproach to those elements within the Anglican Communion who have been working obsessively to isolate Israel and delegitimise the Jewish State and People. We welcome the Church’s support for “all forms of constructive engagement, whether religious, humanitarian or economic, which seek to enable closer bonds between individuals and communities.” The Church has made it clear by these words that it will countenance no further attempts to boycott Israel, and that the Synod vote in February was a tragic aberration and is not in accordance with Anglican doctrine.

The enemies of Israel in our Church, though small in numbers, are likely to react angrily to this statement and will seek to undermine the Archbishop’s renewed commitment to loving interfaith relations with our Jewish brothers and sisters. In the months ahead, therefore, we,as faithful Anglicans, must ensure that these wonderful words are matched by our deeds and that-with God’s help- renewed campaigns to divest from Israel or companies doiing business in or with Israel are defeated.”

Manchester rallies for Israel

Anglicans for Israel, Pro-Israel Campaigns

Albert Square is one of the main city centre venues in Manchester, England. It contains the huge, Victorian town hall and is often used for rallies and demonstrations. It is Manchester’s Trafalgar Square.

On Sunday 30th July it was awash with Israeli flags, placards calling for peace not terror and pledging support for the Jewish State and between 2,500 and 3,000 people most from the Jewish community but some from Christian churches in Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

Manchester’s Jewish community has played a central role in the evolution of Zionism from the 1880s onwards and was an early trailblazer in the renaissance of Hebrew. Indeed the city has a strong claim to be considered a cradle of Zionism so it seemed appropriate that it should be the first to host a major rally in support of Israel in its very heart.

The speakers reflected the community’s diversity – among them were two MPs, a rabbi, the Chief Rabbi of Elad and a representative of the Israeli Embassy – and its unity of purpose in the face of the armed onslaught by Iran/Syria/Hizbollah and the media onslaught by the West’s appeasers of jihadist terrorism. The common themes were, as might be expected, Israel’s desire to live in peace and security, the proportionality of its response to Hizbollah aggression given that organisation’s declared genocidal intentions towards the Jewish people, the tragic inevitablity of civilian caualties as a result of the terrorists’ calculated tactic of using the Lebanese people as ‘human sandbags’ and the sheer scale of the jihadist military build-up as well as the lethal barbarity of the weaponry at Hizbollah’s disposal. Several speakers pointed out that, just as Nazi persecution of the Jews was the prelude to a more general war against civilisation and freedom, so the axis of evil linking Tehran, Damascus, Hamas and Hizbollah intended first to obliterate Israel and then turn on Jews worldwide before moving on to inflict a worldwide fundamentalist caliphate on whoever was left of the rest of us. As then, so now.

In what was certainly the most highly charged moment of the rally we were addressed by Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of Ehud Goldwasser, one of the two IDF soldiers kidnapped by Hizbollah. He made a moving appeal for the return of his son, described the family’s distress and stressed their support for the State’s actions in defence of its very right to exist.

Among the speakers, and something of a star turn, was Revd. Mark Madeley of Anglicans for Israel. He spoke without notes because, as he explained, he wanted to speak from a heart open to God. The impact of what he said could easily be gauged from the number of people who shook his hand and expressed their thanks when he had finished and long afterwards. Here is a brief account of his comments:

“I am very privileged to be here because I love the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I believe my love is given by the almighty as I do not know of any Jewish blood in my family.

Perhaps more importantly for today I am here on behalf of Anglicans for Israel and the many other Christians in the churches across the land who stand by Israel at this time.

I want to apologise from the bottom of my heart for the Church leaders who condemn Israel without reason, without fact and without doing their research. Sometimes their comments are so one-sided that if they were not so sad, they would be laughable. Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East will know that the current conflict goes back much further than the last couple of days.

Of course our hearts go out to all those who have lost their lives in Lebanon and Israel, the latter often forgotten. Our hearts go out to those who have had to flee their homes in Lebanon and Israel, the latter often forgotten and as for the parents of the kidnapped soldiers, I just do not know what to say except we are with you and pray for you.

Please be assured there are perhaps more people in the Christian Church that do stand by Israel than you might realise. We care about Israel because we believe you have a G-d given right to be in the land and to protect your citizens.

I feel so strongly that if it would do any good I would board the next El Al flight to Israel and proclaim this message there too. We stand by you and we pray for you. May G-d bless you.”

Also worth noting is that Dr Irene Lancaster, Academic and Interfaith Adviser to Anglicans for Israel, attended the pre-rally press conference and spoke to Shlomo Goldwasser. Irene is shortly to make aliyah and will settle in Haifa next door to Nahariya where the Goldwasser family live. There is more about Shlomo on Irene’s weblog.

Charles Brickdale (AfI Joint Organiser, Yorkshire)