An article questioning the loyalty toward their countries of all Jews in lands outside Israel, attacking Israel for its “injustice” to Adolf Eichmann, and excusing the Nazi leadership of Germany for its program of anti-Semitism, appeared in the latest issue of the Huron Church News, the official publication of the Anglican Church in London, Ontario. The Canadian Jewish News, published here, calls the article “a sad document of bigotry plus perfidy.”
The article was written by an Anglican priest, the Reverend H.R. Rokeby-Thomas. According to the Canadian Jewish News, the Rt. Rev. George Luxton, Anglican Bishop of the Diocese and editor-in-chief of the Huron Church News, said, when asked about Rev. Thomas’ article: “The views expressed in Rev. Thomas’ article are his own, and it is not my duty to condone or denounce his opinions.” The Bishop is quoted as telling the Canadian Jewish News: “You seem to be too sensitive to criticism.”
Under the title “Current Comment–The Jewish Problem,” the Rev. Thomas wrote in the church organ: “The Jew does not want to recognize that he subscribes to a racial association which must, by its nature, except in the State of Israel, conflict with his loyalty to the country in which he lives, on any issue not acceptable to his cultural and religious association with the people of his race all over the world. Moreover, the Jew is often expecting that Christians should temporize their own faith and missionary obligations to accommodate extremely sensitive Jewish feeling.”
The article assailed Israel for violating Adolf Eichmann’s “rights,” and stated: “The real need is research into the motivation of the Jewish people living in nations where they are alien by race, religion, and resist assimilation into the average citizenship of the country.”
Accusing the Canadian Jews of being “one of the strongest voices opposing Christian education in the schools,” the Anglican priest declared: “Yet their forbears were at one time eager to accept asylum and hospitality; in Canada. They came as ‘guests of the house,’ and now they want to change the pattern and way of life.”
SAYS THERE CAN BE NO PEACE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM
The Rev. Thomas stated that councils of Christians and Jews, such as exist in the United States and Canada, “are little areas of compromise, unacceptable to either Christianity or Judaism, and could indeed be delaying the real facing of the fundamentals involved, because they are ‘crying peace where there is no peace.’ Peaceful coexistence has never proved possible for Christianity and Judaism in the same country,” Rev. Thomas asserted.
The priest proposed that “an annex” be created to the State of Israel, by giving Israel the mandate over Southwest Africa. “This is not a heavily populated area,” he stated. “The present Negro population could well benefit if Israel would come in and do an enlightened work of education and civilization. In such a proposition as this, its objectivity, its opportunity, indeed the Jewish people might find a task which would enable them to put their own unhappiness behind and give them the joy of helping others.”
As to Nazi Germany, the Rev. Thomas declared: “To dismiss the treatment of the Jewish people under the Hitler regime in Germany as a simple case of political exploitation is to avoid the very heart of the matter. Nazi leadership exploited a situation which already existed. There had been elements of behavior on the part of the Jewish people in Germany which had made them collectively unpopular. One of these factors was, of course, their natural growth in numbers, which was not their fault, but it did make them an uncomfortable ‘bloc’ from the political and economic points of view, especially with their tendency to fraternize together.”
The priest concluded that “the real solution is in a new pattern–not in an uneasy coexistence which erupts over so often.” He emphasized that “Christianity can never compromise its missionary challenge in relation to any other ideology.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
