Answering that of God in all
Harvey Gillman offers a personal reflection on Quakers, Jews and the boycott of goods from the Occupied Territories
At a meeting last year in Brighton, to commemorate the Holocaust, I was sitting next to a Jewish solicitor and I told her that, although from a Jewish family, I was a Quaker. ‘But Quakers are anti-Semitic’, she declared. The debate over the boycotting of goods from illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories has divided Friends and caused sorrow and anger among some members of the Jewish community in this country Let me state, first of all, that I am in sympathy with the corporate Quaker position in this matter. However, as both a Jew, culturally and ethnically, and as a Friend, as a matter of spiritual practice, I am troubled by the mutual suspicion that has arisen in recent years between the two communities. The peoples of the Middle East need security, freedom and justice. That, I hope, is our common goal.
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