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By JTA
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Irish Rabbi opposes honor for Mel Gibson.
JERUSALEM (JTA)—An Irish rabbi reportedly assailed the decision to honor Mel Gibson. The Irish Film and Television Academy will pay tribute to Gibson, an actor and director, at its award ceremony Feb. 17 for his contributions to world cinema.
According to the Irish newspaper the Independent, a leading rabbi in Ireland condemned the recognition for Gibson in light of widely publicized anti-Semitic comments he made to California police officers after being arrested for drunk driving in 2006. “We find it very puzzling,” said the rabbi, who wished to remain anonymous. “He has made blatant anti-Semitic remarks, and you’d think they’d give him a miss this year.” The rabbi said the academy should reconsider its decision. The citation stresses Gibson’s Irish roots—his mother and paternal great-grandfather were Irish.
Le Pen sentenced
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A French court gave Jean-Marie Le Pen a three months suspended sentence for saying the Nazi occupation of France was not inhumane. The sentence Feb. 8 was the latest handed to the far-right leader of the National Front for diminishing the significance of the Holocaust. He also was fined 10,000 euros, or about $14,500. Le Pen told a far-right magazine in 2005 that “in France at least the German occupation was not especially inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses—inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometers.” Nazis and their allies deported at least 70,000 French Jews to death camps during the Nazi occupation.
Anglicans: Archbishop’s idea is like Beth Din
WASHNGTON (JTA)—The Anglican Church likened the Archbishop of Canterbury’s proposal for accommodating Muslim law to the British Beth Din. Archbishop Rowan Williams stirred a firestorm in Britain this month when it was reported that he said in a lecture and in a BBC interview that sharia, or Islamic religious law, in Britain was “inevitable.”
The controversy has led to calls for his resignation. In his defense, the church released a statement saying that he was addressing the complexities of a religiously pluralist society.
“In his lecture, the Archbishop sought carefully to explore the limits of a unitary and secular legal system in the presence of an increasingly plural (including religiously plural) society and to see how such a unitary system might be able to accommodate religious claims,” said the statement. “Behind this is the underlying principle that Christians cannot claim exceptions from a secular unitary system on religious grounds (for instance in situations where Christian doctors might not be compelled to perform abortions), if they are not willing to consider how a unitary system can accommodate other religious consciences. In doing so the Archbishop was not suggesting the introduction of parallel legal jurisdictions, but exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience.” In an apparent reference to the British Jewish religious court system, which is empowered to adjudicate divorces, some business disputes and other matters, the statement later pointed out that “this is what currently happens both within the Jewish arrangements and increasingly in current alternative dispute resolution and mediation practice.”
Italian Web site targets Jewish profs
WASHINGTON (JTA) Italian police are investigating a Web site that lists 160 Jewish lecturers at Italian universities. The anonymous Web site claims to expose the professors’ ulterior plans to brainwash students into subversion and to obtain power, Israel Radio reported.