CHURCH GROUP SUPPORTS THE HATERS

Church Group Helps Fund Jewish Anti-Zionists
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Church Aids Jewish Anti-Zionists

The United Church of Canada has donated travel expenses to a new Jewish organization that hosted Muslims at a convention backing a boycott of Israel, according to the National Post.

The Protestant church group admitted that it donated $900 to the organization but said that officials did not need to authorize the donation because of its small size. However, United Church officials told the National Post that the description of the event that led to the creation of the Independent Jewish Voices was “consistent with our overall policy that the end of the occupation must come in order to bring peace and justice.”

The expenses were earmarked for a two-day Alliance of Concerned Canadians conference which provided the catalyst for the formation of the new group. Among delegates who were invited and whose travel expenses were defrayed were “members of Jewish-Muslim, Jewish-Arab and Jewish-Palestinian groups."

The Canadian Jewish Congress is furious over the donation, calling it “shocking, outrageous, shameful and scandalous.” The group’s director Bernie Farber declared, “Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and the Canadian Jewish Congress or another mainstream Jewish organization were to have funded a Christian group to be critical of the United Church of Canada.”

Church spokesman Bruce Gregersen emphasized that the money was for travel expenses and was not intended to help get the new anti-Zionist group off the ground, but Farber said, “It is a horse by the same name. The United Church provided funding to establish an organization whose goal it is to target and attack the mainstream Jewish community.”

He asserted that “the average United Church member will be as shocked as am I to discover that money from their church has gone to help create an anti-Zionist organization.”

Among those attending the two-conference in Toronto was Rev. Vicki Obedkoff, who signed a letter in 2007 aimed at pressuring the Rolling Stones not to appear in “apartheid” Israel. Also present were delegates from the Canadian Arab Federation.