<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;"><DIV><A href="http://markbraverman.org/2010/07/report-from-the-presbyterian-general-assembly-part-2-the-jewish-response/">http://markbraverman.org/2010/07/report-from-the-presbyterian-general-assembly-part-2-the-jewish-response/</A></DIV>
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<DIV>Is there a future for a Presbyterian-Jewish “partnership?” Will the wide range of American Jewish organizations listed in the JCPA letter follow the lead of the Wiesenthal Center and continue to adopt an “us and them” attitude? Will they continue to fight the growing movement, at the grassroots and at the highest levels, to bring an end to the illegitimate and destructive policies of Israel? If the Presbyterians are to have true partners in their pursuit of social justice, perhaps they can be found among the 30 American rabbis who wrote to Judge Richard Goldstone when he was blocked from attending a family Bar Mitzvah in South Africa. Or perhaps the church can be joined by by the Jewish writers and artists who brought out the public letter to protest the San Francisco Jewish Federation’s attempt to establish an “anti-Israel” blacklist, or by the 100+ Jerusalem Jews who wrote in outrage to Eli Wiesel when he claimed Jerusalem
exclusively for the Jewish people. (For links to these documents, go to <A href="http://markbraverman.org/2010/05/signs-of-hope/">“Signs of Hope from the Jewish community.”</A>) Perhaps the denomination could reach out to those Jewish Israelis who, in a cry for help to save them from their own government’s policies, are calling on the world to support the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions <A href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/20/opinion/oe-gordon20">(LA Times, August 20, 2009, “Boycott Israel”)</A>.</DIV></div><br>
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