Western Wall rabbi says pope should not wear cross at site
Ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s May visit to Israel, the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, has said that it is not proper to come to the site wearing a cross.
Pope Benedict XVI.
The pope wears a cross in all public appearances and is slated to visit the Western Wall on May 12 after a meeting with Muslim religious leaders at the Dome of the Rock.
After the visit, which will include a meeting with Rabinovitch,
the pope is slated to meet with Israel’s two chief rabbis, Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar.“My position is that it is not fitting to enter the Western Wall area with
religious symbols, including a cross,” said Rabinovitch in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post Monday. “I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.”Rabinovitch is responsible for religious decorum at the site.
“In coming days I intend to discuss the issue with the pope’s people,” Wadie Abunassar, media coordinator for the pope’s visit to the Holy Land, said in response to reports that the pontiff would not remove his cross. “I cannot imagine the Holy Father removing his cross.”
On a historic visit to the Holy Land in 2000, Pope John Paul II prayed at the Western Wall, stuffing a written prayer between the cracks. Pictures from the visit clearly show him wearing a golden cross while praying.
Despite this precedent, Rabinovitch maintains his position against the display of religious symbols. In recent years there have been at least two incidents in which Rabinovitch has barred access to the Western Wall by Christian clergy wearing crosses.
In November 2007, he refused to allow a group of Austrian bishops led by the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn, access to the site after the clergymen refused to remove or hide their crosses.
At the time Rabinovitch told the Post that “crosses are a symbol that hurt Jewish feelings.”
In May 2008, a group of Irish prelates from both Catholic and Protestant churches were prevented from visiting the Western Wall for the same reason.
Rabinovitch also opposes security arrangements that would prevent worshipers from reaching the Kotel for several hours before and during the pope’s visit.
“Police and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) authorities met with me and presented certain demands for security during the visit that include closing the Western Wall to people who want to pray,” said Rabinovitch.
“For the past 42 years, no one has ever been prevented from praying at the Western Wall and, God willing, no one ever will. A solution needs to be reached that provides adequate security for the pope without infringing on the right of everyone to pray. The Western Wall belongs to everyone.”
A senior Catholic church official said in response that the security arrangements for
the pope were an internal Israeli affair that had nothing to do with the Church.Before 1967, when the Western Wall was under Jordanian rule, Jews were forbidden to pray there. In the Six Day War, Israel conquered east Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, from Jordan and prayer was opened to all religions.
Since when was the pope Jewish? I can only guess one would say so after the insurmountable proof offered by websites such as Judicial-Inc.
Well considering all the times in history Jews have been ‘forced’ to convert to Catholicism, like in times of the Spanish Inquisition, you have a heavy amount of Jews with in the ranks. One time the European nations and America had white, non-Jewish leaders too……….. for awhile.
Jews were also forced to convert to Islam. Perhaps they were even forced to convert to Hinduism in some cases.
Saying the Pope is Jewish because he collaborates with them (what would be the purpose in not doing so? – so all the “truthers” can send the link around YT before he is punished?), and using the Inquisition as evidence, is a profound fallacy of logic.
When I identify someone being jewish it is because of one of three qualifications:
1. religious Jew
2. ‘racial’ Jew
3. Jew by action – I would consider anyone a freemason to fit this bill as well. Although I could never confirm the pope is jewish by 1 or 2 it is quite obvious he qualifies for #3. It would make no sense to defend him either way.
Behinds, damn this guy just looks evil, lol. Kind of that same evil look when you see Chertoff, lol.
It’s important to remember that the religous symbol of Christianity – the cross – generally speaking is very insulting to the Jews.
Why, because Jews are a Satan worshipping death cult and any references to the goodness, peace and benevolence that Christ and Christianity teaches offends these evil Satan worshippers. The cross offends Jew’s unethical beliefs in Satan-Lucifer-Moloch.
Besides that, Moloch doesn’t like Jesus. For obvious reasons.
Elysium, here’s some evidence for you:
In 1492, Chemor, chief Rabbi of Spain, wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, when a Spanish law threatened expulsion.2 This was the reply:
” Beloved brethren in Moses, we have received your letter in which you tell us of the anxieties and misfortunes which you are enduring. We are pierced by as great pain to hear it as yourselves.
The advice of the Grand Satraps and Rabbis is the following:
1. As for what you say that the King of Spain obliges you to become Christians: do it, since you cannot do otherwise.
2. As for what you say about the command to despoil you of your property: make your sons merchants that they may despoil, little by little, the Christians of theirs.
3. As for what you say about making attempts on your lives: make your sons doctors and apothecaries, that they may take away Christians’ lives.
4. As for what you say of their destroying your synagogues: make your sons canons and clerics in order that they may destroy their churches. [Emphasis mine]
5. As for the many other vexations you complain of: arrange that your sons become advocates and lawyers, and see that they always mix in affairs of State, that by putting Christians under your yoke you may dominate the world and be avenged on them.
6. Do not swerve from this order that we give you, because you will find by experience that, humiliated as you are, you will reach the actuality of power.
(Signed) PRINCE OF THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.”
2. The reply is found in the sixteenth century Spanish book, La Silva Curiosa, by Julio-Iniguez de Medrano (Paris, Orry, 1608), on pages 156 and 157, with the following explanation: “This letter following was found in the archives of Toledo by the Hermit of Salamanca, (while) searching the ancient records of the kingdoms of Spain; and, as it is expressive and remarkable, I wish to write it here.” — vide, photostat facing page 80.
~ The above was quoted from Waters Flowing Eastward by Paquita de Shishmareff, pp. 73-74
Maybe it has more to do with Deuteronomy 21:23 Also see Galatians 3:13