May 08, 2009

Benedict goes to the circus

The Pope is going to visit the Yad Vashem, kindly known as Israel's holocaust museum but otherwise known as the holocaust circus. Here's Rory McCarthy in today's Guardian:
Israel's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, is housed within an angular concrete ­corridor that leads visitors through appalling stories of persecution, suffering and death and out eventually to a calming view over the Jerusalem forests.
Now I love a happy ending as much as the next person but see this Ha'aretz article from a few weeks ago:
Yad Vashem has fired a guide over political differences, an institution official said Wednesday.

Shapira confirmed, in a telephone conversation with Haaretz, that he had spoken to visitors about the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin.

He said he did so because the ruins of the Arab village, today a part of Jerusalem's Givat Shaul neighborhood, can be seen as one leaves Yad Vashem.
Hmm, not so calming then.

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