Episcopal Press and News
Jewish Groups Object to Prayer Distributed by Middle East Council
Episcopal News Service. April 12, 1990 [90094]
Jewish groups have issued sharp criticisms of a Palm Sunday prayer distributed by the Middle East Council of Churches (see ENS 90093, March 29).
The National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council stated that the "Prayer from Jerusalem" is "a thinly veiled liturgical attack upon Israel" and that use of the prayer "will inject a divisive and polarizing element into Holy Week religious services." The council, an umbrella organization for 13 national agencies, said "the true purpose of the prayer is to transmit anti-Israel attitudes within a liturgical setting," and it is "filled with mischievous innuendoes, sly insinuations, and gross inaccuracies."
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) called the prayer "provocative" and a "malicious slander," charging that the prayer "makes the reckless and unjustified claim that Palestinian Arabs are being deprived of their 'very right to life' by Israel." The AJC issued a statement contending that "historically, Holy Week has often been a time when Christian liturgy was employed by antiSemites to justify assaults against Jews, both verbal and physical." The AJC said that use of the prayer would be "a major step backward" in relations between Christians and Jews.
The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches endorsed use of the prayer at its March meeting in Geneva. Some churches, however, have already announced that they will not use the prayer. The Netherlands Council of Churches said it would not use the prayer, and the Middle East Commission of the Evangelical Churches in Germany said the text "seems to be one-sided," so it will draw up a text of its own, stressing peace and justice for both sides in the conflict.
The Rev. Charles Kimball, who heads the National Council of Churches' Middle East office, defended the prayer as reflecting traditional Christian celebrations of the Easter season, with its descriptions of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A memo from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in New York disagreed, arguing that the prayer reflected a "triumphal" attitude, viewing the unity of Jerusalem "in strictly Christian terms." Elliott Wright, who wrote the memo, warned that the prayer "is considered in some quarters to be a pro-Palestinian political statement combined with a narrow, exclusive theological point of view."