Quakers launch ‘Occupation’ divestment
THE QUAKERS of Britain have been condemned for announcing they will no longer invest in companies which “profit from the Occupation of Palestine”.
The church said the move “fits into a long Quaker history of pursuing ethical investments”.
The Board of Deputies responded by accusing the church of a “biased and petulant act”.
Board President Marie van der Zyl also alleged that the church had decided to “divest from just one country in the world — the only Jewish state”.
While the Quakers insisted that the boycott is not targeted against Israel or Israeli companies specifically, the church refused to clarify what constitutes a company which “profits from the Occupation of Palestine”.
Mrs van der Zyl said: “The Quakers, who have for so long been at the forefront of peace activism, have now marginalised themselves from being a credible voice on the issue.
“We urge the Quakers to reverse this decision, to stop promoting division, and to join those of us looking to build bridges instead.”
In 2011, the Quakers announced a boycott of goods produced in Israeli settlements “until the Israeli Occupation of Palestine is ended”.
Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said they had a “long history of working for a just peace in Palestine and Israel” that had “opened our eyes to the many injustices and violations of international law arising from the military occupation of Palestine.
“We believe we have a moral duty to state publicly that we will not invest in any company profiting from the Occupation,” he said.
The church has previously chosen not to invest in fossil fuels, arms companies and apartheid South Africa.
Last year, the Church of Scotland debated a boycott of Israel but ultimately rejected it after interventions by the Board and the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities.
JEWISH ACTOR John Bluthal, whose most famous role was as Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley, has died at the age of 89.
During his 60-year career, Bluthal also appeared in TV programmes ‘Allo ‘Allo! and Last of the Summer Wine and starred as Manny Cohen in Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, the sitcom about a Jewish and an Irish tailor which ran to six series between 1967 and 1971.
He was born in Galicia, Poland, in 1929 and escaped to Australia with his family in 1938, before moving to the UK to pursue acting in 1960.
He honed his acting skills in Melbourne’s Yiddish theatre, where he worked with some of the leading directors of the Vilna Jewish theatre scene, who had also migrated to the city after fleeing the Nazis.
A cousin and uncle who had lived with him in his home town of Jezierzany, a shtetl near Czortkow, in Polish Ukraine, got away to Russia and later to Israel. His uncle became mayor of Hadera; a cousin is former MK Nava Arad, who was Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s adviser on women’s affairs. Uncles, aunts and cousins left behind in Galicia died in the Holocaust.
He came to England at the age of 18 just after the war. “It was my red period,” he told the JC in 1995, “and I joined Unity Theatre, where I worked with Alfie Bass and Warren Mitchell.” Vicar of Dibley
We believe we have a moral duty to divest