{"id":8569,"date":"2013-08-07T00:13:18","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T06:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=8569"},"modified":"2013-08-07T00:13:18","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T06:13:18","slug":"soccer-star-lionel-messi-visits-western-wall-on-peace-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/soccer-star-lionel-messi-visits-western-wall-on-peace-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer star Lionel Messi visits Western Wall on &#8216;peace tour&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(JTA) &#8212; The Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem\u00a0 and met with Israeli leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Messi was in Israel with the Spanish soccer team Football Club Barcelona as part of the team&#8217;s &#8220;peace tour,&#8221; which included hosting skills clinics and games with Israeli and Palestinian children to promote peace.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the team donned yarmulkes to visit the Western Wall. In Jerusalem, they posed for a group photo with Mayor Nir Barkat and met at the President&#8217;s Residence with President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great honor to host Barcelona in a holy city like Jerusalem, with this visit a dream come true for Israeli and Palestinian children,&#8221; Peres said. &#8220;They have two dreams: to score in Camp Nou [FC Barcelona&#8217;s soccer stadium] and peace between the two sides. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and the rest of the players, I hope you teach us the tiki-taka style so that we learn how to score a goal for peace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Barcelona team had arrived in the region on Saturday and traveled to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and children.<\/p>\n<p>One month ago, Messi sent a message to the Argentinian Maccabiah team. In 2011, he participated in a campaign for justice and memory of the victims of the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Soccer%20star%20Lionel%20Messi%20visits%20Western%20Wall%20on%20%27peace%20tour%27\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491],"tags":[3313,8790,8795,3385,8788,3386,1029,2739,1030],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8571,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8569\/revisions\/8571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}