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World Jewish News
Melbourne Jewish Сommunity In Uproar
19.03.2009
The Melbourne Jewish community refused to participate in the work of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue, because the former Iranian President Mohamed Khatami was invited to the forum.
The Jewish community is a permanent partner of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue at the University of Melbourne.
Recently, the Center invited Mohamed Khatami to deliver a lecture called "The Dialogue of Civilizations," which he had presented to the UN in 2001.
The President of the Jewish community John Serl, outraged by this invitation which was not concerted with the Jewish community, told his partners at the center about the cessation of cooperation.
"It is impossible to understand how you can invite a person who constantly talks about the need to destroy the Jewish state, whose views are absolutely contrary to the ideology of our Center, which proclaims tolerance and a nonviolent exchange of opinions," reads the letter by John Serl to the Director of the Center, Professor Joseph Camilleri.
The Jewish community also expressed resentment with the invitation to Khatami for "a cup of tea" with the Anglican bishop.
"Beautiful words of Khatami about the need for the coexistence of cultures totally contradict to his political activities, based on dictatorship, violence and hatred against those who are called 'the enemies of Islam.'
We believe that a high-ranking priest should not invite such a person," writes John Serl to the Archbishop Philip Hale.
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