Cincinnati Israel Faxx (Newspaper) - May 8, 2009, Cincinnati, Ohio All the news the big guys missed. ISSN 1074- 2255 Free access to the IsraelNewsFaxx. com searchable archive E- mail: dcanaan( at) israelfaxx( dot) com Visit our free archival web site at www( dot) israelnewsfaxx( dot) com May 8, 2009 Vol. 17, No. 87 ( 2009_ 05_ 08) Editor: Don Canaan, Telephone ( 352) 750- 9420, The Villages, FL 32159 A trusted source for Israeli news and information since 1993 ' Don't believe the man who tells you there are two sides to every question. There is only one side to the truth' Pope Prepares for Middle East Visit By VOA News Pope Benedict XVI is preparing for a week- long visit starting Friday to the Middle East that will take him to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Many Vatican observers see this trip as the most challenging foreign visit by Pope Benedict to date, due to past relations with Jews and Muslims. But there are hopes this visit will help improve relations with the other religions. The first leg of the pope's Middle East tour will take him to Jordan, where Catholics are less than two percent of the population. During three days there he will visit sites of religious significance: Bethany- Beyond the Jordan and Mount Nebo. Vatican observer The Rev. Thomas Williams said the pope would attempt to give Christians living in the Middle East new hope. Many have been leaving the region, driven by a difficult economic and political climate. " One of his main goals there is to bolster Christians in the Middle East and give them encouragement to stay there, to hold firm," Father Williams said. The pope has made a visit to the Middle East one of the early priorities of his papacy. The Rev. Rifat Bader, who is the Roman Catholic Church's spokesman in Amman, said the pope said that he is coming as a pilgrim of peace. Father Bader said any voice that calls for peace and justice should be encouraged and listened to. " We hope that the Holy Father will gather the people because the main title for his visit is to bring unity and peace for the Middle East and for the world. We believe that unity has many aspects, unity between the Christians, unity between the religions and unity between the states," he said. Pope Benedict is scheduled to meet with Muslim religious leaders while he is in Amman. Some have not forgotten how they were insulted by the pope's remarks in a speech he gave in Germany in 2006 about the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. Father Thomas Williams said the pope would be visiting Amman's largest mosque, the King Hussein Mosque. " It is the first time a pope has visited a mosque in Jordan, the second time that Benedict himself has visited a mosque after the Blue Mosque. And this is hugely important because Jordan is setting itself up as the seat of Christian- Muslim relations," he said. " So this is a very, very important move that Benedict is making in hopes that this will be a continued dialogue.” Pope Benedict is also expected to celebrate mass in a soccer stadium Sunday in Amman, before he leaves for Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is due back at the Vatican on May 15. Israel's Hebrew Catholics Keep Faith By Agence France- Presse With just 400 faithful, the Hebrew- speaking Vicariate is dwarfed by the much larger Palestinian Christian community, estimated at some 180,000 in Israel and the Palestinian territories, which will be the main focus of the pope's eight- day visit starting Friday. Established in 1955 by a small group which included several converted Jews, some of them Holocaust survivors, the vicariate largely keeps to itself in a country founded as a Jewish state in which Christians are often suspected of being missionaries. Mideast's Wealthiest Woman to Divorce: Bank Hapoalim owner Shari Arison said she will divorce her husband of six years, Ofer Glazer. Arison, listed by Forbes as the wealthiest woman in the Middle East, and the only woman among the region's 20 wealthiest people, met Glazer in 2003. Glazer is Arison’s third husband. They married that year, but a few months later Glazer was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, which he served in 2007. The Hebrew prayers reverberate through the humble Catholic chapel in Jerusalem where whitewashed walls are adorned with a small metal cross and two pictures of Jesus lined with Hebraic inscriptions. The worshippers are part of a tiny Hebrew- speaking Catholic community, some of them descendants of Holocaust survivors, that has quietly kept the faith in the heart of Jewish state for half a century and will remain in the shadows during the visit by Pope Benedict XVI. " Shalom Hamashiach," the church members quietly say, using the Hebrew phrase for " Hail the Messiah," as two white- robed priests offer communion in front of the altar in their church, a beautifully restored 19th century building just off a bustling Jerusalem street. The unique use of Hebrew in all religious rites at the church began after the creation of Israel in 1948, when the nearly 4,000 Catholics living within the Jewish community searched for a rite of their own, said the Hebrew- speaking Catholic community's leader, David Neuhaus. " All of the other Christians in Israel were members of the Arab community and there was a need to find a religious framework for those Christians living in the Hebrew- speaking Jewish community," the 47- year- old monk said. Apolinari Szwed, who heads the Jerusalem parish, sees himself as part of Israeli society, despite the community's peculiar position within a society in which Jewish religion and ethnicity are so tightly entwined. " The reality of my community is that of any other Israeli. They live their lives just like any Israeli but believe in Jesus," said Szwed, 41, who arrived in Israel from Poland 16 years ago. Beyond the practical necessity that led to the creation of their community, the Hebrew Catholics " shared a sense of duty in the 1950s to inform the Church of its Jewish origins, of Jesus' Jewish roots and of the ties between the two faiths," Neuhaus said. The group has faced suspicions from both Jews and Christians over the years. " We still encounter the suspicion of the local Palestinians, who think we are a Zionist Christian body supporting Israel," Neuhaus said. " But we have no political agenda and our members are of different stripes." The Hebrew Catholics are also constantly at pains to counter any suspicions among the Israeli authorities or the population at large that they are intent on proselytizing among their Jewish compatriots. Instead they have tried to act as a model for efforts to heal Jewish distrust of Christianity following centuries of persecution and anti- Semitism that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust. Evidence of the deeply ingrained animosity finds expression even in the modern Hebrew language. Linguists say the modern Hebrew word for Jesus, Yeshu, is derived from the word, Yeshua or Yehoshua, which was given by rabbis in the Middle Ages and which is in fact an acronym of the expression " may his name and memory be obliterated." Also, the Hebrew word for a Christian priest, Komer, originates in a biblical term signifying a worshipper of idols. Neuhaus uses the term Cohen, the same name for the Jewish priests who worked in the Temple. The tiny Hebrew- speaking Vicariate still maintains centers in each of Israel's four main cities. Its members include Christians married to Jews, monks and nuns who live in Israel out of solidarity, Christians who immigrated from the former Soviet Union and Jews who converted. Neuhaus himself was born into a Jewish family that fled Nazi
