The Church of England Apologizes for Centuries-Old Anti-Jewish Laws

On Sunday, Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, attended a service at Christ Church cathedral in Oxford to mark the 800th anniversary of the Synod of Oxford. As Harriet Sherwood reports, the synod “passed laws forbidding social interactions between Jews and Christians, forcing Jews to wear identifying badges, imposing church tithes on them, and banning them from certain professions. They were also forbidden from building new synagogues.” Sherwood sketches the evolution and repercussions of these rules, and examines the significance of the Church of England’s decision this year to apologize formally to the Jewish community for its “shameful actions.”

By the late 13th century, further measures forbade Jews from owning land and passing on inheritance to their children. Hundreds were arrested, hanged, or imprisoned. Eventually, all the Jews in England—3,000 or so—were expelled under an edict in 1290 by King Edward I. They were not permitted to return for more than 360 years.

The Church of England was not created until the 1530s, when Henry VIII split from the pope. Nevertheless, it was now right for Christians to repent of their “shameful actions” and to “reframe positively” relations with the Jewish community, said Jonathan Chaffey, archdeacon of Oxford.

The move follows a 2019 document produced by the Church of England which said Christian attitudes towards Judaism over centuries had provided a “fertile seedbed for murderous anti-Semitism.” Anglicans and other Christians must not only repent for the “sins of the past” but actively challenge anti-Jewish attitudes and stereotypes, said the document.

It acknowledged that cathedrals in Norwich and Lincoln were associated with the spread of the blood libel in the late Middle Ages, when Jewish communities were falsely accused of abducting and killing Christian children [and using their blood for ritual purposes].

Read more at Guardian

More about: Anti-Semitism, British Jewry, Church of England

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF