xemacs alt-del kiss of death

[debian@jline.com]

does anyone else see this problem?

within an 'xterm', run 'emacs -nw', then type meta-<delete key>. it
always suspends my xterm and gives me the command prompt:


[1]+  Stopped                 xemacs -nw
%

however, typing fg puts xemacs into a weird mode that makes it
unusable. i can't seem to remap the meta-<delete key>
combination. that key combination only has problems like this with
xemacs, as far as i know. finally, i can't keep hitting it - my
brain's got it hard-wired.

can anyone offer any advice? i'd like to stick w/ the xemacs and vm
combo for email, but not at the expense of zombie'ing my session all
the time.

thanks.

jae