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‘Stop Cop City’ activists infuse Jewish rituals into their protest against Atlanta’s planned police training center
(JTA) — As the sun set on Feb. 5, signaling the start of Tu Bishvat, a group of Jews carried shovels into the South River Forest southeast of downtown Atlanta.
In the day’s declining light, they planted saplings — seven paw paws, three fig and two peach — to honor the holiday, Judaism’s “new year of the trees.” They recited the Shehechiyanu prayer, and a rabbi led them in singing “Tzadik Katamar”: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon,” from Psalm 92.
The traditional holiday observance doubled as a protest against “Cop City,” the name that self-described “forest defenders” have given the city of Atlanta’s plan to build a $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training center on 300-plus acres that it owns just over the city line in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Two years into protests against the plans, a “week of action” that began over the weekend swelled the protesters’ ranks and brought an even greater police presence to the site of the planned training center. On Sunday night, a group of activists broke from a nonviolent protest, burning police vehicles and, police said, throwing rocks at officers. Dozens of people were arrested.
The violent turn throws into question other plans for the week, which include a Purim celebration on Monday night and a Shabbat service on Friday, the latest Jewish milestones in nearly two years of controversy and confrontation.
“They’re living Jewish values more legitimately, more sincerely than some of the biggest institutions,” said Rabbi Mike Rothbaum of Atlanta’s Reconstructionist Congregation Bet Haverim, of the Jewish protesters. Rothbaum attended the Tu Bishvat event and is scheduled to lead this week’s Shabbat service; he was speaking before the weekend’s events.
Comparing their worship to a mishkan, the portable sanctuary that the Israelites carried in the desert, Rothbaum said of the protesters, “They go to shul at ‘Cop City.’”
A sukkah constructed in October 2023 at the “Cop City” protest site in the Atlanta forest was destroyed in a police raid in December. (Courtesy of Jewish Bird Watcher Union)
Until about 200 years ago, South River Forest was home to the Muscogee (Creek) tribe, who called it Weelaunee — “brown water,” the name painted on protest banners strung between trees. White settlers drove out the Muscogee, and the land later became a slave plantation, a Civil War battlefield and a city prison farm. Portions have been a police firing range and used for explosives disposal, and it has also been the site of illegal dumping.
In April 2021, Atlanta announced plans to build a police training facility in the forest. Opponents immediately launched a protest. They oppose the redirection of natural resources to the police and want the forest maintained as a natural sanctuary.
After two years as a primarily local issue, national and international attention spiked on Jan. 18, when a protester camped in the woods was killed during what police called a “clearing operation.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Manuel Paez Teran fired a handgun, wounding a Georgia State Police trooper, then was killed by return fire. An independent autopsy reported that the 26-year-old known as “Tortuguita” was struck by at least 13 rounds. An Atlanta police vehicle was torched in a subsequent protest downtown. Charges against more than a dozen of those arrested include violating the state’s domestic terrorism statute.
Across Intrenchment Creek from the city property is a DeKalb County park that bears the waterway’s name and is the subject of an associated protest. Much of the “Stop Cop City” activity has taken place in the 136-acre Intrenchment Creek Park. Legal challenges are pending against a land swap in which the county gave 40 acres to the now-former owner of a film studio, whose crews leveled trees and tore up a paved path until a judge issued a stop work order.
Conservation groups and community organizations in the surrounding majority Black neighborhoods fear that any development will degrade the tree canopy in Atlanta — which calls itself the “city in the forest” — and exacerbate flooding in low-lying areas.
The larger, decentralized protest movement includes a number of Jews, most in their 20s and 30s, who have made their stand by holding Jewish rituals in the forest, some under the banner of the “Jewish Bird Watcher Union.” They have held Shabbat services, performed the Tashlich ritual on Rosh Hashanah, slept in a sukkah during Sukkot, lit Hanukkah candles, and planted trees on Tu Bishvat. Prayer books were adapted for Shabbat and the High Holidays, with illustrations by the Jewish artist Ezra Rose.
Digital fliers advertising Jewish activities during a “week of action” by protesters opposing Atlanta’s planned police training facility. (Shared on social media)
Most of the Jewish events have been held in Intrenchment Creek Park. At the entrance, signs attached to a crumpled gazebo denounce the “film site” property owner. Improvised memorials and slabs of stone bearing spray-painted slogans dot the parking lot. To frustrate machinery drivers, some trails were blocked by barricades formed from downed trees, discarded tires and anything else handy.
The day before Tu Bishvat, three of the young Jewish activists met with a reporter, in an unheated community center a short drive from the forest. Expressing concern about their personal security, given the heated atmosphere around the issue, they spoke on condition that they be identified only by their first names and that their photographs not appear.
Cam, 24, is a labor union activist who grew up in Atlanta, attending Conservative and Reform congregations. Ray, 24, is a software engineer and Georgia Tech graduate, who grew up attending a Reform synagogue in Maryland. Ruth, in her late 20s, works in “regenerative landscaping” and moved to Atlanta with her Israeli family as a child. All said they feel disconnected from the mainstream Jewish community in Atlanta, religiously, politically and ideologically.
“Mainstream Judaism has completely lost touch with the radical history and radical tradition of the Jews,” Ruth said. “The things I like about Judaism, I want to live them in real life.”
She added, “When Sukkot came around and we built a sukkah in the forest, this is the closest I’ve been to relating to the story of traveling, of being in the desert and sleeping under the canopy.”
A makeshift memorial for environmental activist Manuel Paez Teran, who was allegedly killed by law enforcement during a raid to clear the construction site of a police training facility that activists have nicknamed “Cop City” near Atlanta, Georgia, as seen Feb. 6, 2023. (Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images)
Upwards of 50 to 60 Jews have participated in the forest-based worship, and hundreds of people have streamed into the “living room” section of the woods. “I don’t know if they’re all gathering for Shabbat or not but they all gathered around with us and listened to us sing prayers and light candles,” Ray said.
Rothbaum said he admired what he saw the Jewish protesters doing. “Whatever your opinion of the activists at ‘Cop City,’ you have to admire their commitment,” he said, adding, “These kids are reacting to the assimilation of a great heritage of meaning and justice.”
The sukkah survived for two months past the end of Sukkot, until a Dec. 13 police raid against encampments on both sides of Intrenchment Creek. A photo posted on Twitter showed the dismantled poles and torn sheets. The disappearance of the large menorah from the Intrenchment Creek parking lot after Hanukkah was blamed on crews working for the film site owner.
May the candle lights of Khanukah ignite the flames of rebellion. @defendATLforest pic.twitter.com/kdh6mqhMHY
— Fayer – פֿײַער (@FayerAtlanta) December 22, 2022
The morning after Tu Bishvat, city and county SWAT teams, along with state police, were deployed as construction equipment was brought into the police training center site. Two weeks later, at a Shabbat dinner in the forest following the Jan. 18 raid, attendees recited a Mourner’s Kaddish for Manuel Paez Teran and sang the traditional prayer “Oseh Shalom Bimromav” — “They who make peace in their high places.”
The Jewish activists see parallels between their activism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what’s happening in their local forest.
“Anti-Zionism was a major part of what brought us together in the first place, even before the forest movement,” said Cam, who said he saw the two issues as “related struggles.” Opposing Israel is “a big part of what leads us to feel alienated from most mainstream Jewish communities and the inability to be accepted there, and the necessity of forming our own.”
Ruth participated in activism on behalf of Palestinians while visiting family in Israel last summer. “I was hearing and seeing old ancient olive orchards that were destroyed, burned or cut by settlers in order to disempower Palestinians from living there,” she said. “It made me really feel, like, defend the forest everywhere.”
Atlanta officials say they do not plan to defile the forest and argue that the city’s police training facilities are inadequate. The planned complex would serve the police and fire departments, the 911 call center and K-9 units. It would include a shooting range, a “mock city” (with a gas station, motel, home and nightclub) and a “burn building.” The remainder of the land will be developed for recreational use, officials say.
“This is Atlanta and we know forests. This facility will not be built over a forest,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said at a January news conference. “The training center will sit on land that has long been cleared of hardwood trees through previous uses of this site decades ago.”
Activists accuse the city and county of a lack of transparency throughout the process. In a February interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dickens conceded that the city could have done a better job selling the project. “We didn’t do that. And because we didn’t do that it started getting painted by anybody that had a brush,” he told the newspaper.
The mayor’s words have not deterred activists, whose goal is nothing less than cancellation of the project.
“They have destroyed a lot of the beauty already,” Cam said. “They have created this place of desolation and death and destruction, and that is in opposition to our task as Jews to create a world of beauty and joy and holiness. By coming to this place and planting trees, we are reclaiming it, making a place of peace and joy.”
Rabbi Mike Rothbaum, seen here in Massachusetts in 2017, is an Atlanta rabbi who has participated in “Cop City” protests. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The local Jewish protesters have lately gotten a boost from a progressive Jewish organization based in Philadelphia. The Shalom Center launched in the 1980s to oppose nuclear proliferation and now focused largely on climate justice.
“Our sacred text is called ‘The Tree of Life,’” wrote the center’s founder, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, and national organizer Rabbi Nate DeGroot in a Feb. 28 letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that noted Jewish law’s prohibition on uprooting trees. “We pray that the trees of the Weelaunee Forest remain trees that support the flourishing of sacred life for generations to come.”
Rothbaum said he was inspired by the young Jewish activists. “They are reminding us of the Jewish values that come to us through Torah, through the rabbinic writings, that are timeless,” he said. “They are reminding us of what we’re supposed to be. And we owe them a debt of gratitude.”
Ruth had a message for Atlanta’s Jewish congregations and communal organizations, most of which have not engaged publicly on the issue: “I would invite them to join us, to put their Jewish values into action,” she said. “Everything we’re doing here is really Jewish.”
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Iran Launches Missile Featuring Poster Thanking Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez
An Iranian missile carries a poster of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, featuring a message in Farsi and English thanking him for condemning the war and praising Tehran. Photo: Screenshot
Iran has launched a missile toward “US-Israeli assets” bearing a poster thanking Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for what it portrayed as his support for the regime and condemnation of the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign in the Middle East.
According to Iranian state-owned and semi-official media, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday released footage of a missile carrying a poster of the Spanish leader, thanking him for his message of solidarity as part of one of the regime’s latest propaganda moves.
“We praise the Spanish minister who calls this war illegal. We say: not only is this war illegal, it is also inhuman. Thank you, Prime Minister,” the poster reads, featuring a portrait of Sánchez in both Farsi and English.
Iran released footage of the 75th wave of missile attacks against US-Israeli assets.
Follow: https://t.co/B3zXG73Jym pic.twitter.com/Z1aY7cRT5M
— Press TV
(@PressTV) March 22, 2026
Ahead of a European Union summit in Brussels last week, Sánchez once again denounced the ongoing war against Iran, saying Madrid “has condemned the war from the very first moment” and describing the US-Israeli operations against the regime as “illegal.”
As diplomatic ties between Madrid and both Washington and Jerusalem fray over Spain’s refusal to back the US–Israeli offensive and its increasingly outspoken posture on the conflict, Israel’s Foreign Ministry blasted the move as a troubling alignment with Tehran’s narrative.
“Pedro Sánchez – Iran’s mullah regime is thanking you by putting your words on the missiles it fires at civilians in Israel and the Arab world,” the statement read.
“How does it feel knowing your face & words are on these missiles?” it continued. “Keep in mind that Europe – including Spain – is within range of these missiles.”
Pedro Sánchez – Iran’s mullah regime is thanking you by putting your words on the missiles it fires at civilians in Israel and the Arab world.
How does it feel knowing your face & words are on these missiles?
Keep in mind that Europe – including Spain – is within range of… pic.twitter.com/emDyJPokkh
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) March 23, 2026
In one of its most recent moves, the Spanish government blocked the United States from using its bases for military operations against the Islamist regime, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten Madrid with the suspension of trade ties.
Iran earlier this month praised Spain for its decision.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Spain has become one of Israel’s fiercest critics, a stance that has only intensified in recent months, coinciding with a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents targeting the local Jewish community — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions.
From unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state to repeatedly branding the war in Gaza a “genocide,” Sánchez has spearheaded an aggressive diplomatic campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
Most recently, Spain permanently withdrew its ambassador from Israel, further straining relations and garnering the praise of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Last year, the Spanish government announced a ban on imports from hundreds of Israeli communities in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
In September, Spain passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.
Spanish officials also announced that they would bar entry to individuals involved in what they called a “genocide against Palestinians” and block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace.
As the local Jewish community continues to face an increasingly hostile climate and targeted violence, Sánchez has drawn mounting criticism from political opponents and Jewish leaders who accuse his rhetoric of fueling antisemitic hostility across the country.
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US Bishops Call for Catholics to ‘Stand Clearly’ Against Hate, Violence Toward ‘Our Jewish Brothers and Sisters’
Carrie Prejean Boller, who was ousted from the White House Religious Liberty Commission in February 2026 following outrage over her repeated downplaying of antisemitism. Photo: Screenshot
As antisemitism in online Catholic discourse has accelerated under influencers Candace Owens and Carrie Prejean Boller — both recent converts to the religion — US Catholic leadership has again spoken out firmly by releasing a video condemning hate targeting the Jewish people as heretical to the faith.
“Sadly, the celebration of Easter has at times been the occasion for outbursts of hatred and even violence against Jews,” said Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. “The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that the Jews do not bear the collective guilt for the death of Jesus. The church made this teaching explicit at the second Vatican council in Nostra Aetate.”
Catholics are called to reject antisemitism and the lies and conspiracies that fuel it, and to stand clearly against hatred and violence directed toward our Jewish brothers and sisters. To defend religious freedom with integrity, we must also reject antisemitism.@ArchbishpSample… pic.twitter.com/PlGZT0ZARb
— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) March 18, 2026
The 1965 Nostra Aetate teaching instructs Catholics that “indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself.”
Sample said in the video posted last Wednesday that “Good Friday ought to be an occasion for us to return to the Lord, not to scapegoat others. Holding the Jews collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus represents a profound misunderstanding of what took place on Good Friday.” He warned that this theological belief has caused “a great deal of the hatred for the Jewish people that we have seen in history and continue to see today.”
Deicide, the concept of collective Jewish guilt for the execution of Jesus, inspired the antisemitic epithet “Christ killer” and justified centuries of pogroms and forced conversions throughout Europe. This conspiratorial view of Jews scheming to crucify Jesus often went in tandem with the Medieval blood libel, which asserted that Jews would plot in secret to murder Christian children to collect their blood as an ingredient in Passover matzos.
Sample called out this history of conspiracism and its ties to antisemitic theology. “As Catholics, we are called to walk in the truth and so to reject the conspiracies and lies that lead to harassment and even violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters. There is a strong connection between religious freedom and working to counter antisemitism,” he said.
Noting that “the Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States,” Sample asserted that “if we Catholics, in truly living out the gospel, are to defend religious freedom with integrity, we must clearly speak out against antisemitism.”
The ongoing tensions among Catholics over Israel, antisemitism, and the impact of far-right podcasters boiled over on Feb. 9. when Carrie Prejean Boller, a conservative activist and former Miss California, chose to hijack a hearing of the White House Religious Liberty Commission to question panelists about their views on the war against Hamas in Gaza, religious beliefs about Zionism, and opposition to Owens.
This provoked Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of Texas and chair of the commission, to announce Prejean Boller’s removal from the group. She responded in a statement on X addressed to President Donald Trump where she wrote, “You knew exactly who I was when you appointed me,” and declared her “unwavering commitment to the Christian principles I stand for.”
Prejean Boller’s “unwavering commitment” to her newfound theological beliefs inspired the anti-Zionist political group Catholics for Catholics to present the former beauty pageant contestant a “Catholic Champion” award during Thursday’s Catholic Prayer for America Gala.
Speakers at the event included retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Owens, her former Daily Wire podcasting colleague Matt Walsh (who supplied a video address,) and Joe Kent, the recently-resigned director of the National Counterterrorism Center who stepped down from his position on Tuesday before beginning to publicly blame Israel for drawing the United States into the ongoing conflict with the Islamic regime in Iran.
In a discussion last week with far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson, Kent promoted the longstanding antisemitic trope that Israel controls the US government. He asked rhetorically, “Who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East? Who is in charge of when we decide to go to war or not?”
Kent also suggested a potential Israeli hand involved in the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. While refusing to blame the Jewish state outright, he said, “When one of President Trump’s closest advisers who was vocally advocating against a war with Iran is suddenly publicly assassinated, and we’re not allowed to ask questions about that — it’s a data point. A data point that we need to look into.”
On Monday, John Grosso, the National Catholic Reporter‘s digital editor, analyzed the anti-Israel sentiments as “a major rift in the coalition that elected Donald Trump, split between traditionalist Catholics and evangelicals.” Grosso noted a similar online incident, pointing out that “shortly after Israel and the United States started a war with Iran, a viral post on X by user ‘Insurrection Barbie’ amassed more than 5 million views, bringing the conflict into the mainstream — earning the endorsement of Cruz.”
On March 15, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — one of the Republican Party’s most vocal opponents of far-right antisemitism — shared a post from the anonymous user titled “The Long Game and the Conservative Right,” which has since received 4.1 million views, and wrote, “READ every word of this. It’s the best & most comprehensive explanation of what we’re fighting.”
The essay on X is more than 8,000 words and says it seeks to expose “How a Network of Political Catholic Integralists, Russian Ideologues, and Media Provocateurs Are Systematically Dismantling the Evangelical Foundation of the American Right.”
“I am going to map out what I think is the most sophisticated attack in modern political history and all of its corresponding vectors — institutional, intellectual, theological, generational, and media — and explain how each one feeds into a single ten-year project: the replacement of evangelical Protestant political theology with a Catholic integralist or ethnonationalist framework that views Jews, Israel and Protestants not as covenant partners but as adversaries of Christian civilization,” the essay states.
Before laying out the map, the author makes clear the distinction between mainstream Catholics and Catholic Integralists, the latter of which seek to impose a theocratic government on the world. “The political integralist Catholicism being deployed in this operation bears no relationship to the ordinary American Catholic faith — it uses the vocabulary and symbols of a faith tradition as a vehicle for a power project that most practitioners of that faith would find alien and alarming,” Insurrection Barbie explains.
The essay identifies Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin and his 1997 textbook The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia as a key influence on these efforts with his ideas passing through former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, a Tridentine Catholic who advocates for the Latin mass. The two reportedly met secretly in Rome for eight hours in 2018.
“Trump’s voters deserve better than to be used as raw material for a project imported from Russian geopolitical theory and pre-Vatican II European political theology,” Insurrection Barbie writes.
Podcaster Nick Fuentes is a key influencer in this network, with the essay describing how on his shows, which reach more than a million viewers each episode, “every weeknight, before streams begin, viewers see scrolling text from the Apostles’ Creed alongside images of Christ and Scripture passages. Catholicism — specifically the SSPX-adjacent traditionalist Catholicism the Vatican has repeatedly disciplined — is at the heart of his presentation. He actively recruits viewers into his version of the faith. He is building a movement, not just an audience.”
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Catholic Church urges clergy to address ‘misleading statements’ about Jews by far-right influencers
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops cautioned its members in a recent memorandum that Catholic “media personalities” are distorting the church’s position on Jews and Israel, and said that priests should use Holy Week and Easter sermons to clarify these stances.
Bishop Joseph C. Bambera, who chairs the conference’s committee on interreligious affairs and authored the March 13 letter, specifically named Carrie Prejean Boller, a recent convert to Catholicism who was removed from the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission after a combative hearing in which she attacked Zionism, declaring it incompatible with Catholicism. In the same hearing, she also defended Candace Owens, the far-right influencer and a fellow Catholic with a long track record of offensive comments about Jews and Judaism.
Prejean Boller stated that devout Catholics were required to be anti-Zionist and should not be slandered as antisemites on that basis, and has argued elsewhere that Catholics have replaced Jews as “the new people of God.”
“There were witnesses at the hearing who rebutted Ms. Prejean Boller’s assertions about Catholic teaching, but it was her claims and not the rebuttal that have circulated in the media,” Bambera wrote in the confidential letter, which was first reported last week by Joe Enders, a conservative Catholic podcast host.
Rev. Russell McDougall, director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs at the conference of bishops, said that the memo was intended to help clergy facing questions from local members or journalists about the Catholic position on Jews and Israel.
It was accompanied by a public-facing video released last Wednesday that declared “Catholics must reject antisemitism.” McDougall said in an interview that the video was originally scheduled to be published at the start of Holy Week next Monday but was rushed out after Bambera’s memo was leaked and met with a hostile reaction from some right-wing Catholics.
“Media influencers are out there claiming to be speaking on behalf of the church,” McDougall said. “But practicing Catholics know that within the church it’s the Pope, in union with the College of Bishops, that are the teachers of the church.”
The controversy over Prejean Boller’s remarks came amid growing alarm by many Jews over far-right Catholic influencers, including Owens and Nick Fuentes, who have paired hostility toward Jews with opposition to U.S. government support for Israel, and often suggested their faith motivates both positions.
Joe Kent became the latest prominent figure to be caught up in the maelstrom when he resigned last week as director of the National Counterterrorism Center with a letter claiming that Israel had caused both the current U.S.-Israel war against Iran and the previous Iraq War.
He was quickly feted at a gala in Washington, D.C. hosted by Catholics for Catholics, a right-wing group, where he said he “was able to hear God’s voice” while deciding whether to resign from the Trump administration. Prejean Boller and Owens also spoke at the gala.
Bambera, who sent his memorandum to bishops three days before Kent’s resignation, wrote: “The misleading statements made by media personalities” about the Catholic position on Jews and Israel “have been troubling not only to us, but to our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community.”
The letter emphasized the positions detailed in Nostra aetate, a declaration made as part of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, a years-long assembly to modernize the church. Nostra aetate, one of the most significant parts of Vatican II, as the council is known, redefined the Catholic church’s relationship with Jews, holding that “the Jews” as a group are not responsible for killing Jesus Christ, that the Jewish people have a legitimate relationship with God even without accepting the salvation of Jesus and that Catholics should oppose antisemitism.
Bambera also cited a resource on countering antisemitism created in conjunction with the American Jewish Committee two years ago called “Translate Hate.”
Rabbi Noam Marans, the AJC’s director of interreligious affairs, praised the letter in a statement to the Forward: “With the growth of influencers who mistakenly use their Catholicism to spread antisemitic tropes, we need and appreciate responsible Catholic leaders who distance Catholicism from this hate.”
Theological spat over Zionism
Prejean Boller said during the religious freedom commission hearing in February that she opposed Zionism on theological grounds as a Catholic, a point that Bambera’s letter pushed back on.
It said that “Catholics can appreciate the religious attachment that the Jewish people have to the land of Israel, but interpret the reemergence in 1948 of a Jewish state in a historical rather than theological context.”
Some critics of the letter — including Enders, the podcaster who first posted a copy on X — argued that by acknowledging that Catholicism rejects “theological claims” related to Israel’s establishment, Bambera was essentially validating Prejean Boller’s statement that Catholics are required to be “anti-Zionist.”
“With all the preceding indignation toward Mrs. Prejean Boller earlier in this directive, it seems out of place to take this long to say she was right about the political state of Israel having “no biblical prophecy fulfillment,” Enders wrote before calling the letter “totally insane.”
McDougall said those who argued that the letter effectively endorsed Prejean Boller’s views on Israel were misguided. He noted that many, including Enders, also complained that the letter had rejected “supersessionism,” a doctrine that Prejean Boller has also expressed support for that holds Christianity had replaced God’s covenant with Jews.
“That’s something the church has repudiated — and quite clearly,” McDougall said. “The Catholic Cchurch may not take a theological position about the State of Israel but it does take a theological position about the people of Israel, and mentions that the permanence of Israel — when so many other ancient people have disappeared without trace — is to be considered part of God’s design.”
Prejean Boller referred the Forward to a social media post she’d made about the memorandum in which she wrote that “individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility every time they issue a statement” and suggested that Bambera’s letter was at odds with Catholic doctrine.
The dispute offers a peek into a roiling intra-Christian debate over Christian Zionism and whether the Bible contains support for Israel’s modern existence. It’s a debate obscure to most American Jews, who often think of Zionism as pertaining to political support for a Jewish state in Israel based on arguments like the need to prevent another Holocaust, rather than on religious grounds like God’s promise to Abraham, which Bambera’s letter references.
The letter was intended to inform sermons across the country during Holy Week, which begins on March 29, and asked bishops to share the contents of the memo with clergy in their respective diocese.
McDougall said the memorandum and letter were intended to reach the church’s core membership, even if they were unlikely to change the views of figures like Prejean Boller and Owens. “I’m not sure that there’s much the leadership of the church can do to reach some of these individuals and groups that think of themselves as more Catholic than the Pope,” he said.
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