March 13, 2012

The Council of Christians and Jews has been committed to Jewish Christian dialogue for 70 years. The Council is fully aware of the wide range of feelings on the issues influencing our relationship with each other.

We are conscious that The Revd Stephen Sizer's contributions have caused widespread disquiet and hurt in both communities and led to confusion and polarization of views. We have paid particular attention to a link posted by Mr Sizer on his Facebook page to "˜The Ugly Truth', an antisemitic website. We consider this to be wholly unacceptable. We cannot accept it was an accident, because Mr Sizer was alerted to the antisemitic nature of the website in November and again in December, but only removed the link in January when contacted by the Jewish Chronicle.

The Rt. Revd Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester and Chairman of CCJ said:
"The content and the delay in removing the link from Mr Sizer's Facebook page was disgraceful and unbecoming for a clergyman of the Church of England to promote. Members of the CCJ have described the website as "˜obscenely antisemitic.' "

The Revd David Gifford, CEO of the Council of Christians and Jews said:
"The Revd Stephen Sizer is fully entitled to his views on the Israel/Palestine conflict but he has to be aware that criticism of Israel is one thing while publicizing websites with antisemitic content goes beyond what is tolerable.

CCJ has expressed grave concern to the Bishop of Guildford in whose diocese Mr Sizer is a priest "“ and has drawn the attention of the Surrey police to what they claim was an action tantamount to encouraging race "˜hatred'."