Tony Greenstein’s letter to the Church of England newspaper:
Stephen Sizer is to be commended for speaking out when others passed by on the other side of the street. Perhaps if the Confessional Church in Germany had not passed by on the other side of the road, if Bishop Galen had included the Jews in his famous 1941 condemnation of the murder of physically and mentally handicapped Jews, if Pastor Lichtenberg of Hedwig Cathedral had been supported for speaking up for the Jews when he was taken to Dachau (& died soon afterwards) many many more lives would have been saved.
But no doubt Bonhoffer and Lictenberg’s critics also castigated these rebellious priests for speaking out rather than giving comfort to the Volk. I know whose side I would have taken and Stephen should be congratulated not isolated and browbeaten.
Some context – Tony Greenstein previously tried to rig a Jewish Chronicle poll with Terry Gallogly of York PSC, in order to paint Jewish Chronicle readers as racist supporters of the English Defence League. For its part, York PSC think that pushing Israeli Jews into the Mediterranean is “now no longer an option“.
The chair of York PSC is Stephen Leah, a lay preacher who was behind the Methodist move to boycott Israel, which drew heavily on Sizer’s work on Christian Zionism.
Tony Greenstein thinks that Stephen Sizer is a moral voice of the Church, imagining Sizer in Nazi Germany, and portraying him in a favourable light.
Who are the “volk” in Greenstein’s comparison?
