SCoJeC welcomes
Kirk withdrawal of Assembly report

Following protests from SCoJeC and others to the Church of Scotland about the Church and Society Council report on The Inheritance of Abraham?, the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) arranged a meeting last week between representatives of the Church and the Jewish Community.

The Kirk’s delegation included the Moderator, the Principal Clerk, and the Convener, Vice-Convener, and Secretary of the Church and Society Council; the Jewish community was represented by the Director of SCoJeC, the Chair of the Defence and Group Relations Committee and the Interfaith Consultant of the Board of Deputies, the chair of the West of Scotland CCJ who is a former Chair of SCoJeC and President of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, the head of the Movement for Reform Judaism, and the Rabbi of the Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation.

The meeting took place over a kosher lunch at the Church headquarters in Edinburgh, and began with prayers from both traditions.  The atmosphere was cordial, and the discussion of the concerns that had been expressed was frank.  The Church representatives accepted that the report had given cause for concern, and acknowledged that some of the language used was unfortunate, and that the report would require to be revised.

After the formal meeting concluded with the all the participants reciting the Priestly Benediction in Hebrew and English, the following joint statement was issued:

The original report was also removed from the Church website, and the link redirected to this joint statement.

Welcoming the outcome of the meeting, SCoJeC Director Ephraim Borowski said:
“We were very gratified by the seriousness with which the representatives of the Kirk treated our concerns about the deficiencies of their document, and are grateful to the CCJ for facilitating this meeting.  The speed with which the Church acted to remove the original text from their website is a clear indication of their good will, and their intention to repair the damage this has caused to interfaith relations not just in Scotland but internationally.  We now look forward to a revised document which eliminates the bias, the supersessionism, the selective quotation, and the misrepresentation of main-stream Jewish belief, and which gives due weight to both 2000 years of to Jewish prayer for the return to Zion, and to contemporary Jewish experience in Scotland.”