gets its boots on.
Your friend, as a teacher, should have had NO problems explaining to 8th graders that the Hitler Youth were not Nazis anymore than Wermacht soldiers were. Your friend as a teacher, should have seized this opportunity to ask those 8th graders what they would do today if George Bush came and forced them to be part of the Bush Youth at the risk of shipping their family,
known for speaking out against Bush and foiling the activities of his Brown Shirts, off to an internment camp or lining them up against a wall and shooting them.
Do your friends students know that THEY are going down in history as the
New Nazis as they worry about the specks in other peoples' eyes? What excuses will they, their parents and their teachers come up with?
Your friend, as a teacher, should have also had enough of a sense of responsibility to do a little research on what places like the Simon Wiesenthal Center had to say about Pope Benedict.
And then we wonder why people in this country are mocked worldwide as not being able to think and pre-grad school educational system laughed at. We wonder why the rest of the world can think on its own and be out in the streets protesting the evils of the wars we complicitly support while we sit at home UNABLE TO REASON for ourselves and swallowing any ole meme tossed out there. It's really a crying shame.
ADL Welcomes Election of Cardinal Ratzinger as New Pope New York, NY, April 19, 2005 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today welcomed the election of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new Pope, Benedict XVI.
Under his leadership in Germany and Rome, the Catholic Church made important strides in improving Catholic-Jewish relations and atoning for the sin of anti-Semitism. Cardinal Ratzinger has been a leader in this effort and has made important statements in the spirit of sensitivity and reconciliation with the Jewish people.Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
We welcome the new Papacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. From the Jewish perspective, the fact that he comes from Europe is important, because he brings with him an understanding and memory of the painful history of Europe and of the 20th Century experience of European Jewry.
Having lived through World War II, Cardinal Ratzinger has great sensitivity to Jewish history and the Holocaust. He
has shown this sensitivity countless times, in meetings with Jewish leadership and in important statements condemning anti-Semitism and expressing profound sorrow for the Holocaust. We remember with great appreciation his Christmas reflections on December 29, 2000, when he memorably expressed remorse for the anti-Jewish attitudes that persisted through history, leading to "deplorable acts of violence" and the Holocaust. Cardinal Ratzinger said: "Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah (Holocaust) was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians."
Though as a teenager he was a member of the Hitler Youth, all his life Cardinal Ratzinger has atoned for the fact. In our years of working on improving Catholic-Jewish ties, ADL has had opportunities to work with Cardinal Ratzinger.
We look forward to continuing that relationship.The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/VaticanJewish_96/44698_96.htm On edit more with thanks to Princess Turandot:
New York – The American Jewish Committee today congratulated the Catholic Church and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on his election as the 265th pope, Benedict XVI.
"Cardinal Ratzinger already has shown a profound commitment to advancing Catholic-Jewish relations, and we look forward to continuing our close working relationship with the church," said Rabbi David Rosen, AJC's international director of interreligious affairs.
"We hope the church will continue to show the same sensitivity to Jewish concerns and needs as did the late John Paul II."
AJC is the leading American Jewish interlocutor with the Catholic Church in the U.S. and at the Vatican.http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/nfo/article.cfm?id=3906 The Simon Wiesenthal Center congratulates Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on becoming Pope Benedict XVI. "I hope that he will continue to build on the legacy of Pope John Paul II’s special relationship with the Jewish people," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "The new Pope, like his predecessor, was deeply influenced by the events of WWII," he said. "As a child, Pope Benedict XVI
grew up in an anti-Nazi family. Nonetheless he
was forced to join the Hitler Youth movement during the Second World War."
Rabbi Hier continued, "Pope John Paul II dramatically changed the Catholic Church forever in reaching out to other religions, particularly Judaism. I am confident that the Vatican under the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI will continue to build on those remarkable achievements and organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center look forward to being partners in that process."
http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/nfo/article.cfm?id=3906 And from Ha’aretz
New pope seen continuing relationship with Israel, Jews By Peter Hirschberg, Haaretz Correspondent
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the new pope to be known as Benedict XVI, will continue the positive, ground-breaking relations toward Israel and the Jews that characterized the papacy of Pope John Paul II, say senior Jewish figures who are integrally involved in relations with the Vatican,
and know Ratzinger personally.
"He has a profound commitment to good relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and an unquestionable commitment to Israel's well being," says Rabbi David Rosen, who was a key figure in the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican in 1993.
"From a narrow Jewish and Israeli perspective, it is good news for the Jews."Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, says
Ratzinger "was the man who provided the theological underpinnings for Pope John Paul II's decision to open relations with Israel. He solved the real problem that existed - the 2,000-year-old theological question. He was the one who had the keys to open that lock. In the last 20 years he has changed the 2,000-year history of relations between Jews and Christianity. I believe he will continue the policies of John Paul II with regard to relations with the Jews and Israel."
Shortly after the establishment of diplomatic ties, Ratzinger visited Israel to deliver the keynote address at a Jewish-Christian conference. "He wanted to express his personal support for Vatican-Israel relations, and for the advance of Jewish-Catholic relations," recalls Rosen, who chaired the event.
Ratzinger, who made several quiet visits to Israel before the establishment of diplomatic ties, wrote the introduction to what Rosen calls the "most important" document on Christian-Jewish relations to come out of the Pontifical Biblical Studies Commission, the Vatican body that focuses on biblical studies. The document, which was issued under Ratzinger's authority, deals with the central place of the Jewish people and of religious Jewish texts in Christian teaching.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/567125.html
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