Jews angry with Gaddafi on plan to meet on Sabbath

Reuters ^ | Jun 9, 2009 | Philip Pullella

[forkinsocket]

ROME (Reuters) - Rome's Jewish community, some of whom were forced to leave Libya 40 years ago, are angry over Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's apparent willingness to meet them only on Saturday, the Sabbath day sacred to Jews.

Community leaders also want Gaddafi, who arrives in Rome on Wednesday for his first visit to Italy, to tell them the whereabouts of a Palestinian who was sentenced for a 1982 attack on a Rome synagogue and found asylum in Libya.

"At the very least this shows a lack of sensitivity," Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome's Jewish community, told Reuters. "But it is also a matter of principle. We won't go as a community unless the day is changed."

Libyan organizers of the trip have invited the Jews to attend a meeting -- along with Italians who were expelled from the country in the early 1970s -- planned for Saturday in a tent being set up for Gaddafi in a sprawling Rome park.

The Sabbath, or Shabbat, is a day of rest during which Jews cannot work. Many of Rome's Jews are observant, including Shalom Tshuva, a Libyan who is a deputy president of Rome's Jewish community and head of Libyan Jews in Italy.

Pacifici said he did not understand why organizers could not have scheduled the meeting for another day when observant Jews could attend. The community has asked for a change.

[forkinsocket]

.

[Nachum]

No problem. Reschedule it for Friday morning...