Archbishop Justin, you need some new Jewish friends
JVL Introduction
Robrt A. H. Cohen calls on the Archbishop of Canterbury to consult a more diverse range of opinions before making statements such as he did last week in rushing to comment on Chief Rabbi Mirvis’ anti-Labour statement.
“Even if it were not your intention,” writes Cohen, “it was difficult for anyone to read your comments and not infer your endorsement of the Chief Rabbi’s analysis and his call to reject the Labour Party. It felt like you were part of the Rabbi’s “echo chamber”, perpetuating a distortion for political motives and failing to “separate facts from opinion”.
This article was originally published by Patheos on Sat 7 Dec 2019. Read the original here.
Archbishop Justin, you need some new Jewish friends
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Robert, that is a brilliant, humane, considered response. Would that all discussions on the topic were conducted in the same way.
And that the MSM gave the same level of attention to you as it does to Rabbi Mirvis
I am furious. Antisemitism, other kinds of racism – both a matter of shame. No excuses. But an article where not a single woman’s voice is recommended to the Archbishop – that is all right. It is a beautiful piece, and makes all the right points – except it leaves 50% of us out. It is nearly 2020, half a century after the first Women’s Liberation Conference in Oxford: is this how far we havent come?
Extremist UK Jews supporting the genocide of the Palestinians by the Jewish State, have done horrendous damage to the image of the
UK’s 250000 Jewish population. Thank you Robert Cohen, a moderate Jew.
Dear Mr Cohen ,
I am not Jewish , I am a Church of England vicars daught . I believe that at this time our society needs radical change . And that we desparately need Jeremy Corbyn to effect that . He is closer in ethics to what we’d see as Christian values and I was desparing when I heard the Arch Bishops support .
Many thanks for sending this wonderful letter .
May God be with you and all of your faith in the coming days .
Best wishes ,
Imogen Harris
A valid criticism from Naomi I think… The way to perfect the article could be for Robert to add a reference to Jenny Manson and Leah Levane as potential new ‘friends’, with a link to the JVL website.
Otherwise very well argued and persuasive article… hopefully it has already been sent directly (and urgently) to the Archbishop, by email, twitter, carrier pigeon … for him to then make a public adjustment to his previous comments… before Thursday 🙂
It will be useful to directly target ‘opinion leaders’ like the Archbishop (though on this occasion he’s maybe more of a follower lol )
If I were Archbishop of Canterbury I would sort out the complaints of child abuse against his own clergy before looking into some bogus twitter like someone made or didn’t make 10 years ago on the basis of a BICOM report.
Perhaps fortunately for him, Bishop Peter Ball resolved his own case by bouncing down the stairs at 87. I understand that for the last year we have figures for is 2016 which was 3,300 child abuse complaints within the Anglican Church.
And the state lets these people run schools on taxpayers’ money.
I agree.I also thought it wrong of the archbishop to rush to comment on such a serious issue spoken by one voice the chief Rabbi and his friends,rather than first listening to the many not just the few!
I could not disagree more with Mr Cohen’s argument. I speak for myself of course, as he speaks for himself. But he by his own description, though possibly a halachic Jew by birth, marks a full stop in his family’s Jewish spiritual journey: his children are not Jews. He has little and diminshing (fore)skin in this particular ‘broiges’. The Chief Rabbi has a duty of communal leadership, and whether or not you follow the United Synagogue, he represents and communal and spiritual face to the world. His finger is more closely placed on the communal pulse than anyone else. So when he speaks, on behalf of all Jews – and most especially when he does so to non-Jewish audiences, there is an appropriate derech-ertetz in silence, to allow his message on behalf of us all to be heard and appreciated without noise. Antizionism is antisemitism, period. Those who stand against the Jewish community have probably left in many ways already e.g. by marrying out. So Mr Cohen, who do you speak for? One Jew with no Jewish future. Let Chief Rabbi do his work – and if you cannot support him, say nothing to contradict in public.
In response to ‘g carp’s’ comments on my letter to the Archbishop:
Firstly, my own family circumstances are beside the point. Either the opinions I’ve expressed have some merit or they do not. It doesn’t matter that it’s me that has said them…except to say, as I did in the letter, that I’m grateful for having a broader insight into Church-Jewish relations than most commentators. I was not saying that the Chief Rabbi’s views should be ignored, only that a wider range of Jewish voices be considered if a full understanding was to be gained. I can’t accept the extreme deference towards the Chief Rabbi which you are calling for when he his clearly not representative of the entire Jewish population in the UK. As for insisting that ‘antizionism is antisemitism, period’ you are casting aside a very long tradition of legitimate Jewish thinking that covers before 1948 and since. I’m happy for the Chief Rabbi to continue to do his work. But meanwhile, I will continue to do mine which is to an articulate a valid and Jewishly rooted objection to his position on this issue.