Lake Oswego Methodist leader says issue may return

By Paul Haist
Jewish Review

While Jewish leaders across America were hailing the recent rejection of Israel divestiture proposals at the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church, a Portland-area Methodist leader cautioned that the Israel divestiture issue was not consigned forever to church history.

The Rev. Steve Sprecher of the Lake Oswego United Methodist Church said, “I think the General Conference as a whole was not ready at this moment in time to go down the road of divesting, but the General Conference clearly did not reject divestment absolutely for all time.”

Sprecher, who chairs the UMC’s Peace and Justice Work Area, explained that policy proposals can come from a variety of sources in the church and that future General Conferences could address divestiture again.

“If there is not a significant shift on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East, I would guess that the odds are good it (divestiture) will be back as a resolution,” said Sprecher.

Most national Jewish leaders commenting on the UMC’s divestiture decisions attributed the good news in large part to local efforts.

Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee Director Robert Horenstein agreed.

“What made the difference was all the grassroots activity at the local level,” he said.

Horenstein was part of the local effort. Variously with American Jewish  Committee Area Director Emily Gottfried, Congregation Beth Israel Rabbi Michael Cahana and Congregation Neveh Shalom Rabbi Daniel Isaak, he met twice with Sprecher, as well as with UMC Bishop Robert Tsugio Hoshibata who heads the church’s Oregon-Idaho region, which sent two voting delegates to the recent national convention in Forth Worth, Texas.

The CRC also presented its program “Hope for Peace” at the Lake Oswego United Methodist Church April 1, shortly before the UMC’s national conclave. “Hope for Peace” provides a mainstream Jewish perspective on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Horenstein said about 35 people saw the program at the Lake Oswego church.

Prior to Jewish concern about possible Israel divestiture moves by the UMC, the local Jewish community’s connection to the church was largely through their shared participation in interfaith advocacy issues such as hunger, according to Horenstein.

That has begun to change in recent years.

“We’ve been doing outreach to mainline churches specifically because of what came out of the Presbyterian Church in 2004,” said Horenstein.

In 2004 the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted, in the church’s words, to “initiate a process of phased selective divestiture in multinational corporations operating in Israel.”

That move, roundly criticized by Jewish leaders, mobilized national and local Jewish organizations to move on the divestiture issue. Plans are to keep up the outreach.

“We agreed we would establish a Jewish-Methodist dialogue because we don’t think this will go away soon,” said Horenstein.

Sprecher said, “Ongoing conversation can only strengthen us and maybe in the process we can find a way to address some of the underlying issues.”

http://www.jewishreview.org/node/13112