The RCA Condemns Presbyterian Vote on Divestment

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the largest organization of Orthodox rabbis, harshly condemned the adoption of a measure calling for divestment from major companies doing business with Israel by Presbyterians at their General Assembly.

Rabbi Leonard Matanky, president of the RCA observed, “The Presbyterians just sent back interfaith relations with Jews to a dark time we thought had ended. We have been teaching successive generations of young Jews about new attitudes of understanding and respect that we’ve witnessed in many churches. We will now have to add PCUSA to the short list of churches which have never forgiven Jews for surviving two millennia of church-inspired anti-Semitism.”

“This one-sided stab at the only democracy in the Middle East encourages those who reject peace, and think they can take it all through violence and terrorism,” said Rabbi Mark Dratch, the RCA’s executive vice president. “The vote took place in the same week that the rest of the region was plunged in chaos, Christians were slaughtered in Kenya, and Palestinians celebrated the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers by passing out sweets. It is a sad epitaph for the remnant of a once-proud and important church. We condemn the evil of the moral equivalency that has to be used and the distortion of facts necessary to come to the conclusion of the PCUSA.”