French Jews feel 'pandemic of anti-Semitism': archbishop

TEL AVIV (AFP) - The archbishop of Paris and head of the Roman Catholic Church in France, Andre Vingt-Trois, said that French Jews feel they are enduring a "pandemic of anti-Semitism" on his first visit to Israel.

"The Jewish community feel they are living through a pandemic of anti-Semitism," he told AFP, clarifying comments made earlier at a news conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog.

"It is a feeling felt by the Jewish community," he added.

Asked about he considered the state of anti-Semitism in France, the archbishop emphasised that "there are certainly points which need attention but France should not be turned into a battlefield."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070212/wl_mideast_afp/mideastfrancereligion_070212201628

Sorry, that has to be one of the worst written news items ever, way too repetitive. I wonder if the editors a "Yahoo News" have been hacking at that one?

I'll see if I can find it at AFP website.

As if there is no anti-semitism.

In a related story, "Iraqis feel like they are getting killed by the hundreds every day".

My response to this news piece is to say that there is a global perspective and innate kindness in the words of Archbishop Vingt-Trois. And notable owing to its rarity. And very welcome. Well-considered and much-welcomed words.

I understand his remarks also about France. I was fortunate to see the world premier of Louis Malle's AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS. Malle appeared and spoke with the audience, retelling in summary the account on which the film is based, about being a Catholic student in a school whose priest-educators attempted to hide a Jewish boy from the Nazis. The film is Malle's best, in his own opinion, and is a somber look back at the generations of ethnic tensions in Europe generally and France particularly.

Against Malle's chronicle of a particular period and event, plus the long-term ethnic questions at the heart of Europe's modern ethnic history, Archbishop Vingt-Trois' words seek to heal.

I'm glad he made the trip he did to the place he did with words of inclusion.

Because of that, and how badly it's written, I think it might be bogus or an old story that someone is trying to pass off as a new AFP story.

Here's the APF Website: <http://www.afp.com/english/news/?pid=stories>

It's not at AFP (which usually has the last 12 hours of their News Stories) and I'm not finding this with Google or Google News either.

Maybe you can find it somewhere else, but I can't.

http://www.la-croix.com/afp.static/pages/070212200818.yfonw2s6.htm

And more about his visit from Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:

Paris Archbishop in Israel, renewing French church's links to country

The head of the Paris archdiocese, Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois, arrived in Israel on Monday at the head of a large delegation of clergymen, theologians, pilgrimage tour operators and journalists, ending a decade in which there was no cooperation between the French Catholic Church and Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/824998.html

Here's part of a slightly better translation (done by the AltaVista Babbel Fish website):

12/02/2007 21:09
Anti-semitism: development of the archbishop of Paris
TEL-AVIV (Israel), 12 fév 2007 (AFP) -

The archbishop of Paris André twenty-three affirmed Monday in a development with the AFP which it did nothing but report one feeling at the Jewish community by evoking a "pandemia of anti-semitism" in France.

"I said that the Jewish communities of France have the feeling to be crossed by a pandemia of anti-semitism, which is sometimes illustrated by certain events", the prelate declared. "It is the feeling of the Jewish community", it insisted.

Questioned on the evolution of the antisemistism in France, the archbishop of Paris underlined qu"' there are certainly points on which it is necessary to be attentive, but one should not transform France into battle field".

The archbishop had evoked little before "a pandemia anti-semite" in France at the time of a conference press at the first day of a visit in Israel, while ensuring that the catholic community would be at the sides of the French Jews "in the event of serious situation"....

(more at link, but you have to copy this link: <http://www.la-croix.com/afp.static/pages/070212200818.yfonw2s6.htm> into the http// box at this link: <http://babelfish.altavista.com/> (or your favorite translation site) to read it)