The vandals smashed crosses and broke tombstones. 

By World Israel News Staff

The United Kingdom and the Anglican Church have condemned an act of vandalism by two Jewish teenagers on a historic Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, next to Jerusalem’s Old City.

The vandals, who appeared on surveillance cameras to be religious Jews, smashed crosses and broke tombstones in the cemetery, which has been targeted in the past.

According to Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who visited the desecrated cemetery, “hatred speech and hatred crimes are on the rise” in the Israeli capital.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who is senior clergyman of the Church of England, slammed the desecration as “a blasphemous act”.

“As we continue to pray for peace in the Holy Land, I stand with Archbishop Hosam Naoum and other Jerusalem church leaders in calling for respect, protection, equality and justice for its Christian community – who are the Living Stones of the Church,” he added.

The British consulate in Jerusalem came out against the vandalism, tweeting: “This is the latest in a string of attacks against Christians and their property in and around the Old City. The perpetrators of religiously motivated attacks should be held accountable.”

Israel’s Foreign Affairs ministry called it an “immoral act” that was “an affront to religion”.

The ministry also called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.

The cemetery was opened in 1848 by Samuel Gobat, then-Bishop of Jerusalem. It has Commonwealth war graves and the bodies of high profile people, including Oskar Schindler, who saved 1200 Jews in the Holocaust, are buried there.

The Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery was also desecrated in 2013. Efforts by local Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities led to the restoration of the site.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, and Chief Rabbi of the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, expressed solidarity with the Anglican Church.

The Church called for ways to combat “violent acts of defilement against sacred sites” in Jerusalem, which is holy to the three Abrahamic religions.

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Climate change “will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale” than the Holocaust, the archbishop said.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

A British archbishop who came under fire for saying that the death toll that could potentially come from climate change will be worse than the Nazi genocide of Jews during the Holocaust apologized on Tuesday for his remarks.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is the leader of the Anglican church with some 85 million adherents, spoke to the BBC at the Cop26 climate change summit, warning that world leaders who do not immediately enter crisis mode will be “cursed.”

When questioned about his use of the word, Welby said that history would harshly judge politicians who do not place climate change at the forefront of their agendas.

“People will speak of them in far stronger terms than we speak … of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany because this will kill people all around the world for generations,” he said.

“It will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale. I’m not sure there’s grades of genocide, but there’s width of genocide, and this will be genocide indirectly, by negligence, recklessness.”

“I unequivocally apologize for the words I used when trying to emphasize the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26,” Welby wrote on Twitter on Monday.

“It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis.”

Earlier in the day, Israel’s Energy Minister, Karine Elharrar, was excluded from the entire day of events at the conference because the facilities are not accessible for physically disabled people.

“I went to the International Climate Conference to promote the common fight against the climate crisis through meetings with my counterparts around the world,” Elharrar, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately this was not possible due to an accessibility problem, which in 2021 no longer has a place.”

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The Anglican Church of Canada has removed a prayer calling for the conversion of the Jews.

By World Israel News Staff

The Anglican Church of Canada will remove a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. The Canadian Jewish News reports that it’s “being hailed as a milestone.”

The church’s governing body, the General Synod, approved nearly unanimously on July 16 the measure to replace the conversion prayer in the Book of Common Prayer with another entitled “For Reconciliation with the Jews.”

The amendment will need to be ratified at next General Synod in 2022. The church’s Vicar General of Quebec, Edward Simonton, says this is “‘just a formality,” the paper reports.

Right Rev. Bruce Myers, the Anglican bishop of Quebec, led the effort to remove the conversion prayer.

He told this year’s synod that persecution of Jews “is not a thing of the past, nor is it restricted to other parts of the world.” He mentioned the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh as an example.

Myers said that the church should “assume a humble and reconciliatory stance with our Jewish elders in the faith,” adding, “It also invites Anglicans to be ever mindful of Christianity’s deep Jewish roots.”

The “Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews,” asked God to “hasten the time when all Israel shall be saved” by accepting the Christian Messiah.

The new prayer “For reconciliation with the Jews,” was worked on by the Anglican Church, the Prayer Book Society of Canada, and the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus, the paper reports.

It reads: “O God, who didst choose Israel to be thine inheritance: Have mercy upon us and forgive us for violence and wickedness against our brother Jacob; the arrogance of our hearts and minds hath deceived us, and shame hath covered our face. Take away all pride and prejudice in us, and grant that we, together with the people whom thou didst first make thine own, may attain to the fulness of redemption which thou hast promised; to the honour and glory of thy most holy Name.”

Rabbi Adam Stein of Congregation Beth Israel in Vancouver and  Rabbi Reuben Poupko of Montreal both praised the new prayer, the Canadian Jewish News reports.

Poupko acknowledged the synod for its “principled decision, which represents a milestone in Anglican-Jewish relations.”

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