News
Episcopalians battle over aid to Israel A
group of prominent Episcopa- lians is criticizing their church’s
stand on Israel, urging it to join 15 other denominations that called for an accounting of U.S. aid to Israel. The public letter released in Janu- ary notes that leaders of 15 religious groups, including Lutherans, Presby- terians and Methodists, asked Con- gress to take that step last October, and that the “voice of the Episcopal Church is woefully missing.” The group includes Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Emeri- tus Desmond Tutu, an Anglican; and former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Ed Browning. The group also called on church executives to ensure that financial resources aren’t being used to support Israel’s occupation of Pal- estinian territories. “Just as this church stood with South Africa and Namibia during the
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dark days of apartheid,” the Epis- copal leaders said, “so we recog- nize that we need to be standing with our sister and brother Pales- tinians who have endured an apart- heid that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has described as worse than it was in South Africa.” Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said signing “partisan letters almost always raises the conflict level” and hinders efforts toward recon- ciliation through dialogue, accord- ing to Episcopal News Service. Last year the Episcopal Church rejected boycotts and sanctions against Israel, instead pledging to support “positive investment” in the Palestinian territories.
© 2013 Religion News Service 11 ACT ALLIANCE/PAUL JEFFREY
authorities. In 2012, the ELCA pro- vided $450,000 for emergency food, hygiene kits, bedding, clothing, care for mothers, training and more. More than half of those at Zaatari are chil- dren (see photo below). Continued fighting in Syria has displaced some 2.5 million people. The ELCA and the LWF are working in partner- ship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
Update: Hurricane Sandy Since October 2012 when Super- storm Sandy hit, the ELCA has raised more than $3.3 million for the church’s response in the U.S. and abroad. Of that amount, $126,000 was committed to recovery efforts in Cuba and Haiti, where 890,000 and 1.8 million people, respectively, were affected. In Haiti, where the storm destroyed 22 cholera centers,
Girls line up before start- ing school in the Zaatari refugee camp (see page 9), located near Mafraq, Jor- dan. Opened in July 2012, the camp houses more than 50,000 refugees from the civil war inside Syria, and its numbers are growing.
10 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
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