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Pope In Israel Finds Himself In Midst of Controversy

By Howard M. Friedman

During the first day on the Israel leg of his Middle East trip, Pope Benedict XVI finds himself in the midst of political controversy. He delivered an address (full text) during his visit to Yad Vashem, the memorial to victims of the Holocaust. While Zenit described The Pope's remarks as "a moving address" that focused on the importance of remembering the names of Holocaust victims, Haaretz reported on some who were critical of the speech:

The chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Avner Shalev, said he expected the pope, "who is a human being, too," to draw on his personal experience to issue a stronger condemnation of Nazis and Germans, who were not directly mentioned in the speech. The pope grew up in Nazi Germany and served in both Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, before deserting from the army in 1944. Shalev, however, said the speech was "important," especially in its criticism of denial of the Holocaust....

The chairman of Yad Vashem, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, himself a Holocaust survivor, complained of the pope's usage of the word "millions" instead of the more specific "6 million" when speaking of the Holocaust's Jewish victims, as well as over his use of the word "killed" rather than "murdered."

The Pope's remarks included a plea that Holocaust victims' suffering "never be denied, belittled or forgotten!" Sky News points out the importance of this statement, since in recent months the Pope has been strongly criticized for lifting the excommunication of Holocaust-denying Lefebvrite Bishop Richard Williamson. (See prior posting.)

Later in the day, the Pope spoke to leaders of interreligious dialogue efforts in a meeting at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem. (Full text of remarks.) At the end of the meeting, Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, the head of the Sharia religious courts in the West Bank and Gaza, delivered an unscheduled speech, lashing out at Israeli policy and insisting that Jerusalem was "the eternal political, national and spiritual capital of Palestine." Haaretz and the Financial Times report that the speech, delivered in Arabic, did not have simultaneous translation. The conference, as scheduled, broke up immediately after al-Tamimi's speech, and the Pope, when informed of the nature of al-Tamimi's remarks, left the conference hall with his entourage.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on May 12, 2009 (boomark / email).