PM Sharon pays tribute to pope as 'friend' of the Jews

[IndianaGreen]

I posted this article in another forum, but I wanted to share it with you all. JPII was our friend!

Last Update: 04/04/2005 04:09

PM Sharon pays tribute to pope as 'friend' of the Jews

By Haaretz Staff and The Associated Press

Pope John Paul II was "a man of peace, a friend of the Jewish people," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, as he offered the country's condolences on the pope's death to the Christian community both in Israel and abroad.

John Paul "acknowledged its (the Jewish people's) uniqueness and toiled for an historic reconciliation of the nations and the renewal of diplomatic ties between Israel and the Vatican in 1993," continued Sharon, who met the pope in 1999, when he was foreign minister, and invited him to Israel for the millennium celebrations on behalf of the government. "The world lost yesterday one the most important leaders of our times, whose contribution to bringing people together, uniting nations, and to understanding and tolerance will accompany us for many years."

<snip>

But while many Israelis mourned the loss of a uniquely friendly pontiff, for some, the mourning was more personal: Elderly Holocaust survivors reminisced Sunday about growing up with Karol Wojtyla, the man who became John Paul II, in the small Polish town of Wadowice, and about encounters with the young seminary student toward the end of World War II. These early friendships are widely believed to have been a major factor in the late pope's efforts at reconciliation with the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

One survivor, Idit Tzirer, said that she was an emaciated 13-year-old in 1945. She had just been released from a Nazi labor camp and was sitting on a street corner in the snow, too weak to walk, when Wojtyla approached.

"Suddenly, he appeared, like an angel from heaven, when nobody else was taking any notice of me," she said on Israel TV. "He brought me a cup of hot tea and two huge slices of bread and cheese ... After a while he asked me if I wanted to get away from that place and I told him I wanted to get to Krakow, but I couldn't walk. So he hoisted me on his back, like a sack of flour, and carried me, four or five kilometers."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/560415.html

[IronLionZion]

1. You gotta love the irony

Yes JP II was a good friend to people of all faiths, and he was an honorable man and a true man of peace. The polar opposite of Ariel Sharon...good grief!

sorry
:rant:

It's nice to know that the holy father gave hope to so many people.

[Cuban_Liberal]

2. He was a 'bridge builder'.

He had a great deal of compassion for the Jewish people, stemming from his childhood. He had many Jewish friends, and several perished in the camps, something he never forgot.