Jewish Agency official slams bishop rehabilitation
JERUSALEM (AP) – A senior official in Israel’s Jewish Agency on Sunday slammed a decision by Pope Benedict XVI to rehabilitate a British bishop who denied the existence of the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.
“I think it’s a scandal,” said Amos Hermon, head of the Task Force Against Anti-Semitism at the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency.
The pope’s decision to rescind the excommunication of four bishops came just days after one of them, Richard Williamson, told Swedish TV that evidence “is hugely against 6 million Jews being deliberately gassed.”
The Holocaust and its memory are a sensitive issue in Israel. The murder of 6 million Jews by German Nazis and their collaborators is recognized as the most traumatic event in modern Jewish history. Denial of the Holocaust is seen in Israel as a clear manifestation of anti-Semitism.