Sunday, September 19, 2004

So who's exaggerating?

A slight discrepancy between accounts of Madonna's visit to the Kotel.
Here's Ma'ariv:
Last night, hundreds of ultra-Orhotox [sic] Jews prevented her from visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
While approaching the area, her convoy was surrounded by hundreds of Orthodox men who chanted “Shabbis” (Sabbath in Yiddish). Police did not take any chances and refused to allow her passage.
In the Ma'ariv's Hebrew version, the Haredim were "screaming insults at her, mainly 'Shabbes.'"
Here's Reuters:
Pop star Madonna, on a spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land, glimpsed Judaism's sacred Western Wall from afar in the dead of night to avoid being mobbed by waiting photographers.
Looking upset and trying to shoo away photographers with a wave of her hands, Madonna stayed in her car outside the shrine's compound in Jerusalem's Old City in the early hours of Sunday before driving away under heavy security minutes later.
The majority of accounts -- such as the BBC -- back up Reuters, while adding that "At the site she received a mixed welcome from young worshippers, with some chanting: 'She has no right to be here.'" This is hardly hundreds of Haredim converging on her car and screaming at her, as the Ma'ariv stories would have you believe.

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