Kelowna was the site of the most recent convention of the United Church of Canada. The United Church had asked another Rabbi, from the West Coast, to attend as a resource person, but that Rabbi had to pull out at almost the last minute. I was approached, and after much rescheduling of meetings and other obligations, was able to make it.

I went for many reasons. The Canadian Jewish Congress and the United Church have a long history of working together on issues of common interest. What the United Church says, and does, matters. They are involved in many issues, with a convention binder a few inches thick. As well, I was aware of the issues that had surfaced quite publicly relating to Israel, just prior to the convention, and felt compelled to go.

Through our working together, the United Church has gained a full appreciation of the centrality of Israel for Jews. The official policy of the United Church affirms the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State in secure borders free from the scourge of terrorism and suicide bombings. This is of major significance for a church that has a checkered history when it comes to Israel.

We had thought that the demons had been exorcised, only to be once again confronted by the ghosts of the past coming to life once more. And these were ugly ghosts. Imagine hearing, from a respected religious group, the charge that taking MPs to Israel amounts to bribery. This is really unworthy of retort. But the public should know that the MPs who visit Israel are actually given the opportunity to meet with Palestinian leaders as well.

The allegation of bribery, and the underlining canard of dual loyalty that is at its foundation, are a gross insult to a grateful Jewish community that has made colossal contributions to Canada ever since its inception.

These and other libels were part of the support documents for three of the four resolutions about Israel that were on the agenda for discussion and vote at the convention, the three which called for a boycott of Israel. Included in the list of accusations was the charge that Israel is an apartheid state.

Considering that Israel is under siege from enemies all around it sworn to its destruction, it is important to appreciate the following: that one and a half million Arabs live in Israel and have the right to vote, that 10 of the 120 members of the parliament of Israel (the Knesset) are Arab, that an Arab sits on Israel’s Supreme Court, that Arabs are members of Israel’s diplomatic team, that Arabs and Israelis are treated side by side in Israel’s hospitals and are as well members of the health provider team, and that Israeli researchers are presently hard at work identifying a defective gene that causes a fatal disease in Arab infants.

This hardly sounds like apartheid. Is Israel perfect? No. But its treatment of the Arab population is nothing short of exemplary.

To put it mildly, we were at once shocked and angered that offensive and untrue words such as these could emanate from the United Church. Canadian Jewish Congress leaders were at the forefront of bringing this issue out into the open. The United Church, to its credit, recognized the verbal violence of its background papers and, as the first order of business when the resolutions came up for discussion, passed a motion repudiating and regretting the provocative, unbalanced and hurtful background material. That motion was passed resoundingly and almost unanimously. For that, it was worth going to Kelowna.

As an invited official guest, I was treated very fairly, and was given a generous amount of time to address the commission of the United Church responsible for these motions. I was given three minutes to speak, which may sound like little time, but is actually double the amount allotted speakers from the floor. For the record, I went a bit over four minutes (Rabbis sometimes do that), but was not interrupted.

My message to the delegates was clear. Any call for a boycott against Israel is a vilification of Israel so serious as to make any future relationship between the United Church and the Jewish community impossible. It would cause an irreparable rupture.

I also emphasized that at least three of the resolutions were conceived in hate, although later repudiated, for which I congratulated them. For that, it was important to go to Kelowna.

The motion to dismiss the three resolutions passed by a significant, though not unanimous, margin. The remaining resolution was tinkered with until past the deadline for debate, but no one was in the mood for this to linger. The final resolution fell way short of recommending boycott as church policy. In the world of resolutions, linguistic nuance carries great meaning. For this, it was worth going to Kelowna.

The delegation from the Canadian Jewish Congress, which included its CEO Bernie Farber and West Coast representative Michael Elterman, was not there to stifle discussion on the Middle East. We realize that people have different views and we live in a free country, like Israel, where these views can be and are expressed. For the record, I strongly disagree with many of the assumptions and presumptions in the approved resolution.

But that is not the issue. What we could not fathom was the venom against Israel, and the poisonous message of a boycott as official United Church policy. Hopefully, the United Church will move away from the negatives and devote its full and considerable resources to encouraging and supporting even more ventures that increase the chances of peace and harmony.

It should be clear that much as the United Church was blamed for the scandalous language of its background papers, so does it deserve the credit for rejecting that language, and rejecting the boycott. I was impressed by the energy of the debate, as well as by the seriousness of those in attendance. I do not doubt the sincerity of the delegates.

But sincerity alone is no guarantor of the truth of an argument. For that, one needs to see both sides, and to ask the fundamental question of who is responsible for the suffering and hardship about which no one in their right mind could be happy.

Thankfully, the United Church pulled back from a decision that could have made it instead a Divisive Church. For that, too, it was worth going to Kelowna.

Rabbi Bulka is the Rabbi of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa and Rabbinic Emissary for Canadian Jewish Congress, as well as its immediate past co-president.