The former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on Tuesday lamented the “resurgence of antisemitic rhetoric and activity” following the “butchery” Hamas terrorists perpetuated in the onslaught on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Working this out in the world of 2025 is a matter of all sorts of extremely painful dilemmas—as we witness the resurgence of antisemitic rhetoric and activity, within the nightmare cycle of violence that has been so much more deeply entrenched, with the butchery of Oct. 7,” Lord Williams said at the Jonathan Sacks Annual Memorial Lecture at King’s College, London.
“The desperate plight of the hostages is a bitterly vivid symbol of the way that so many lives—Jewish and non-Jewish—are held hostage by a climate of terror.”
The 74-year-old bishop and theologian, who served as the head of the Church of England from 2002 to 2012, was a close personal friend and colleague of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who served as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for nearly a quarter century from 1991 to 2013. Sacks, who died in 2020, was an internationally acclaimed theologian and author.
Ahead of the lecture, Williams remarked, “Jonathan Sacks’ groundbreaking meditations on how we mend our social brokenness, drawing deeply on the basic reality of covenant with God and one another, converge with some important strands in modern European thinking about solidarity. A durable community needs more than general fellow-feeling; it requires the sense of a common project.”
“This year’s memorial lecture in memory of my late husband was a testament to his enduring impact even beyond the Jewish community,” Lady Elaine Sacks said.