When interfaith trust is fractured by careless words

I’d just returned from a beautiful candle lighting on the last night of Chanukah in the heart of Muswell Hill, organised by Chabad. Hundreds of people from the local Jewish community and others of all faiths and none gathered in the pouring rain to demonstrate solidarity with their Jewish neighbours at this time of tragedy and trauma.

This included the Mayor of Haringey, Councillor Ahmed Mahbub, our local MP Catherine West and others. The Mayor spoke about the light that the Jewish community brings to the Borough of Haringey and how valued we are. As we danced to Hanukkah tunes in the pouring rain, eating doughnuts only a few metres away from the Muswell Hill Christmas tree, I forgot about our collective sadness for a moment and simply basked in the joy that celebrating diversity brings to communities across the UK.

That moment of joy was short-lived and, in fact, shattered by a piece published in the Times Credo Column this weekend by the Archbishop of York, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell.

My radar is naturally attuned to articles relating to faith and interfaith engagement, and as the former Director of the Council of Christians and Jews, I’m even more attuned to anything that relates to Christian-Jewish relations.

In the absence of a permanent Archbishop of Canterbury, it is the Archbishop of York who is the temporary ‘stand-in’ for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Therefore, anything said by the Archbishop of York, particularly prior to Christmas, can impact on the hearts and minds of millions of Christians, let alone the general public, especially when published in the weekend edition of a national newspaper.

It was unsurprising that the Archbishop’s credo piece focused on the birth of a Christian child in the West Bank and the Christmas story, having just returned from the region. He used this story to shed light on the injustices suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of unrestrained settlers.

The piece also talks about the suffering of Israelis at the hands of Hamas terrorists and decries the rise of antisemitism worldwide: ‘This antisemitism is not abstract; it has erupted into violence, including the shocking attack in Bondi, which has deepened fear and grief within Jewish communities far beyond Israel’ – which is why it was all the more shocking to have this then calibrated with ‘The response to this barbarism should not be to inflict terrible privations and injustices on Palestinian civilians.’

This direct conflation left me speechless. Not only is it deeply offensive to a community in mourning, but it does nothing for peacebuilding or for the plight of Palestinians. It should go without saying that many Jewish people are deeply concerned about settler violence and that many Christian people are concerned about antisemitism. The two are not mutually exclusive but are also not connected.

Christian-Jewish relations are extremely important to me, as are all good-faith relations, especially at this time, and I have personally felt nothing but support from Christian friends and colleagues, not only now but throughout my career. Trust between communities requires sensitivity, nurturing and care. It is built over time but can be destroyed in a moment with careless and hurtful words. This is particularly so when spoken by the leadership of any community. It is my hope that in the New Year, there will be a renewed opportunity to rebuild and repair what, in the words of the Archbishop, is both ‘fragile and beautiful’.

• Elizabeth Harris-Sawczenko is an interfaith consultant for a number of charities