Harry Potter sparks Israel religious row
Wednesday Jul 18 16:40 AEST
Harry Potter and religion just don't seem to mix.
The star of JK Rowling's blockbuster children's book series has been accused in the past by some Christian groups of turning tender young minds to unsavoury areas such as magic and the occult.
But while the Church appears to be easing up on Harry, the bespectacled boy wizard now appears to have sparked Israel's latest religious row.
The worldwide launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the wildly anticipated final instalment in the seven-book series, will occur at one minute past two in the morning this Saturday.
The problem for Jews is that this also marks the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.
And in Israel, the law requires most businesses to close.
But many bookstores say they will launch the book and be damned.
Israel's biggest bookstore chain Steimatzky has declared it has no plan to change its launch schedule.
"We're required by our agreement with the book's publisher to launch the book at the same time as everywhere else in the world," spokeswoman Alona Zamir said.
Attitudes like that have drawn fire from Orthodox Jewish lawmakers, including Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai, who's threatened to fine any store that opens on Saturday.
Avraham Ravitz of the United Torah Judaism Party has also taken the Potter books to task for their "defective messages".
"We don't have to be dragged like monkeys after the world with this subculture, and certainly not while violating our holy Sabbath," he said.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the Church of England is taking a more positive approach by publishing a guide advising youth workers how to use Harry Potter to spread the Christian message.
Despite the original concerns of religious hardliners and evangelicals, Harry Potter is now being backed by British church figures including the former archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, who described the film as "great fun".
The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev John Pritchard even described JK Rowling as a "great storyteller".
"Jesus used storytelling to engage and challenge his listeners", he reasoned.
"There's nothing better than a good story to make people think, and there's plenty in the Harry Potter books to make young people think about the choices they make in their everyday lives."
The author of the Harry-Potter-for-Christians guide, Owen Smith, says the magic of JK Rowling is really no different to that of Christian writers like CS Lewis.
"To say, as some have, that these books draw younger readers towards the occult seems to me both to malign JK Rowling and to vastly underestimate the ability of children and young people to separate the real from the imaginary."
And Smith should know what he's talking about. He previously wrote a book on how to use The Simpsons as a means of spreading the Christian message.
