Leading members of Britain’s Jewish and Christian communities have condemned a prominent Anglican church for holding a service where traditional carols were rewritten to attack Israel.

The Rector of St James’s Piccadilly, the Rev Charles Hedley, said that he would think twice before allowing the service to take place in his church again after he received dozens of complaints.

The offices of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Carey of Clifton, his predecessor, are among those who have criticised the service. The event was organised by anti-Israel campaigners, including one Jewish group, and featured carols that had been rewritten by an unnamed Jewish parody writer.

The Twelve Days of Christmas was sung as: “Twelve assassinations/ Eleven homes demolished/ Ten wells obstructed/ Nine sniper towers/ Eight gunships firing/ Seven checkpoints blocking/ Six tanks a-rolling/ Five settlement rings/ Four falling bombs/ Three trench guns/ Two trampled doves/ And an uprooted olive tree.”

The event, “Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols”, was organised by the group Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and the Palestinian group Open Bethlehem.

Those taking part included Ang Swee Chai, the author and orthopaedic surgeon, Baroness Tonge, who was sacked from the Liberal Democrats’ front bench in 2004 after saying that she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were Palestinian, and Jocelyn Hurndall, the mother of Tim Hurndall, the peace campaigner who died after he was shot by an Israeli soldier.