I'm already pooped out on the pope's visit here. Israel's Chanel One TV has been showing the Catholic pope and Eurovision ad nauseum. So this afternoon, I put my copy of The Sting in the DVD. After that I popped out to the local movie club* and watched Sunset Boulevard. Maybe tomorrow I should watch our Star Wars Trilogy.

I'm a Jew and I worship only One G-d, HaKodesh Baruch Hu. It's the first mitzvah of the Ten Commandments.

"I am the Lord your G-d, Who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery"

"You shall have no other gods but me"

"You shall not take the name of your Lord in vain"

No confusion. What amazes me is the excitement the visit this goyishe religious leader has caused. Davka Roman Catholics? Since when have they done anything for the Jews?

I think I'm going to take a sabbatical from the news for the week. All one hears about here is pope, pope, pope and more pope.

I found Rabbi Lau's complaint rather ironic:

"A few points were missing in the pope's address," said Lau. "There was no mention of the Germans, or Nazis, who carried out the massacre. There was not a word of sharing the grief or of compassion or pain for the six million victims."

"Instead of the word 'murdered,' as the previous pope John Paul II used," Lau continued, Benedict XVI used the word 'killed.' There is a very clear difference between the two verbs," the former chief rabbi stressed.

How can he complain about the pope's words and ignore the terminology used in Yad Veshem? "Perished" is even worse than "killed."

I'm going to have to work hard to keep myself entertained this week, since Jerusalem is all jammed up, so that the roads will be empty for the pope. Now, I'm curious. Does any other country do this to its innocent civilians?

*a small group of friends