• ISRAEL \ Dec 26, 2001
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    Jewish religious school apologizes for burning New Testament
Jewish religious school apologizes for burning New Testament A spokeswoman for Orot, a public school in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, said a teacher held the outdoor book burning for his sixth-grade class in early December, destroying a Christian Bible a missionary gave to a pupil.

"We regret that this incident occurred," spokeswoman Jordana Klein told Reuters. "The intentions were not to criticise Christianity, but only to tell these Jewish boys that they don't have to listen to the missionaries."

Klein said Orot pupils were regularly targeted by "aggressive" Christian missionaries living in the Jewish state. The Hebrew-language copy of the New Testament that was burned had no markings indicating who had distributed it, she said.

Israel's Education Ministry said it had summoned the school principal, who had backed the teacher's conduct, for a disciplinary hearing. "This is a grave matter and the ministry condemns book-burning of any kind," a spokeswoman said.

Klein said: "Many of the parents were sensitive to the idea of book-burning, given the historical associations," she said. She said Orot's own rabbi maintained burning the New Testament was still permissible if done in private.

"From now on, if a child comes to school with a New Testament given him by missionaries, we'll tell him to take it home so his parents can decide what do with it," Klein added.

Proselytising minors is a criminal offence in Israel, where the population is about 80 percent Jewish.
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