In a strongly-worded letter, the Rabbinic Board of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) asserted that the staged disruption of a Christian service by the Jewish protest group IfNotNow employed “a classic anti-Semitic tactic.” On Sunday, June 4, IfNotNow protesters interrupted a service led by Pastors from Christians United for Israel (CUFI) in Stockton, CA, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem.

“Pastor Styrsky is a scholar and a fine individual,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the CJV. “I know his love of Zion will endure this shameful event. We apologize to him and his congregation for the actions of these few misguided individuals”

In the letter, the Board of the CJV condemned both IfNotNow’s tactics and its underlying message. “To call East Jerusalem, Judea or Samaria ‘occupied’ by Jews and to demand they leave,” says the letter, “is to advocate for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their indigenous homeland.”

“CUFI always said that it stands with the Jewish People, but facing the invasion of their house of worship by an unruly mob is assuredly not what they meant,” quipped Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director of the CJV. “Nonetheless, it clearly links them to millennia of Jewish history.”