S
St.James
Guest
Church Flap in Jerusalem: Bad blood - and Saliva
By Eric J. Greenberg
October 22, 2004
It has been Jerusalem’s dirty little secret for
decades: Orthodox yeshiva students and other Jewish
residents vandalizing churches and spitting on
Christian clergyman as they walk along the narrow,
ancient stone streets of the Old City.
Now, however, following a highly publicized fracas
last week between a yeshiva student and the archbishop
of Jerusalem’s Armenian Church, the issue is
generating unprecedented media attention in Israel.
The fight started after a yeshiva student at the
respected Har Hamor yeshiva spat on Archbishop Nourhan
Manougian during a Christian holy procession in the
Old City.
In the wake of the incident, a top Armenian Church
official told the Forward that his church is calling
on the Israeli government and on rabbis around the
world to help put a stop to the offensive,
decades-long abuse.
“These ultra-Orthodox Jews are the ones causing this
scandal, those that live here in our neighborhood and
the ones that come visit the Western Wall,” said the
church official, Aris Shirvanian, in a phone interview
Monday. He spoke from the patriarchate’s world
headquarters in the Armenian Quarter, one of the famed
four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem.
“We would like to see the authorities… become more
strict with the offenders,” said Shirvanian, director
of ecumenical and foreign relations of the Armenian
Patriarchate. “We would also ask rabbis to get
involved in educating this one sector of the Jewish
society.”
Har Hamor is one of the leading institutions of
religious Zionism, Israel’s equivalent of Modern
Orthodoxy. Most sources interviewed for this article
suggested that the abusive practices were more common
in the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community, which is
characterized by greater insularity.
The spitting on priests has been occurring “since the
unification of Jerusalem in 1967,” Shirvanian said.
Scholars contacted by the Forward cited several
ancient rabbinic sources as potential sources of
anti-Christian attitudes.
At least one talmudic passage advises Jews to say
pejorative things when passing the homes or graves of
idolators, and while most rabbinic authorities have
denied Christianity was intended, some medieval
commentators seem to suggest that some Jews viewed it
that way, presumably reflecting Jewish resentment of
Christian persecution.
Shirvanian said the Armenian church has generally
“tried to ignore” the spitting incidents. He said most
Christians do not report the incidents to the police
because the authorities ignore them. “They just take
the reports and of course, they release the
offenders.”
A Jerusalem police spokesman, Gil Kleiman, said that
before the recent altercation involving the Armenian
patriarch, it had been two years since the police
handled a spitting incident.
Kleiman confirmed that Christian clergy complain the
harassment is frequent. But it took the attack on the
Armenian leader to transform the matter into a public
issue and national embarrassment.
forward.com/main/article.php?ref=greenberg200410201103
By Eric J. Greenberg
October 22, 2004
It has been Jerusalem’s dirty little secret for
decades: Orthodox yeshiva students and other Jewish
residents vandalizing churches and spitting on
Christian clergyman as they walk along the narrow,
ancient stone streets of the Old City.
Now, however, following a highly publicized fracas
last week between a yeshiva student and the archbishop
of Jerusalem’s Armenian Church, the issue is
generating unprecedented media attention in Israel.
The fight started after a yeshiva student at the
respected Har Hamor yeshiva spat on Archbishop Nourhan
Manougian during a Christian holy procession in the
Old City.
In the wake of the incident, a top Armenian Church
official told the Forward that his church is calling
on the Israeli government and on rabbis around the
world to help put a stop to the offensive,
decades-long abuse.
“These ultra-Orthodox Jews are the ones causing this
scandal, those that live here in our neighborhood and
the ones that come visit the Western Wall,” said the
church official, Aris Shirvanian, in a phone interview
Monday. He spoke from the patriarchate’s world
headquarters in the Armenian Quarter, one of the famed
four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem.
“We would like to see the authorities… become more
strict with the offenders,” said Shirvanian, director
of ecumenical and foreign relations of the Armenian
Patriarchate. “We would also ask rabbis to get
involved in educating this one sector of the Jewish
society.”
Har Hamor is one of the leading institutions of
religious Zionism, Israel’s equivalent of Modern
Orthodoxy. Most sources interviewed for this article
suggested that the abusive practices were more common
in the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community, which is
characterized by greater insularity.
The spitting on priests has been occurring “since the
unification of Jerusalem in 1967,” Shirvanian said.
Scholars contacted by the Forward cited several
ancient rabbinic sources as potential sources of
anti-Christian attitudes.
At least one talmudic passage advises Jews to say
pejorative things when passing the homes or graves of
idolators, and while most rabbinic authorities have
denied Christianity was intended, some medieval
commentators seem to suggest that some Jews viewed it
that way, presumably reflecting Jewish resentment of
Christian persecution.
Shirvanian said the Armenian church has generally
“tried to ignore” the spitting incidents. He said most
Christians do not report the incidents to the police
because the authorities ignore them. “They just take
the reports and of course, they release the
offenders.”
A Jerusalem police spokesman, Gil Kleiman, said that
before the recent altercation involving the Armenian
patriarch, it had been two years since the police
handled a spitting incident.
Kleiman confirmed that Christian clergy complain the
harassment is frequent. But it took the attack on the
Armenian leader to transform the matter into a public
issue and national embarrassment.
forward.com/main/article.php?ref=greenberg200410201103