Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
By Amiram Barkat

Ha’aretz
Oct 12 2004

A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended
a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul quarter.
When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came
and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down,
the passerby spat in his face.

The clergyman prefered not to lodge a complaint with the police and
told an acquaintance that he was used to being spat at by Jews. Many
Jerusalem clergy have been subjected to abuse of this kind. For the
most part, they ignore it but sometimes they cannot.

On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the
cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession
near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop’s
17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the
yeshiva student.

Both were questioned by police and the yeshiva student will be
brought to trial. The Jerusalem District Court has meanwhile banned
the student from approaching the Old City for 75 days.

But the Armenians are far from satisfied by the police action and say
this sort of thing has been going on for years. Archbishop Nourhan
Manougian says he expects the education minister to say something.

“When there is an attack against Jews anywhere in the world, the
Israeli government is incensed, so why when our religion and pride
are hurt, don’t they take harsher measures?” he asks.

According to Daniel Rossing, former adviser to the Religious Affairs
Ministry on Christian affairs and director of a Jerusalem center for
Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has been an increase in the number
of such incidents recently, “as part of a general atmosphere of lack
of tolerance in the country.”

Rossing says there are certain common characeristics from the point
of view of time and location to the incidents. He points to the fact
that there are more incidents in areas where Jews and Christians
mingle, such as the Jewish and Armenian quarters of the Old City and
the Jaffa Gate.

There are an increased number at certain times of year, such as
during the Purim holiday.”I know Christians who lock themselves
indoors during the entire Purim holiday,” he says.

Former adviser to the mayor on Christian affairs, Shmuel Evyatar,
describes the situation as “a huge disgrace.” He says most of the
instigators are yeshiva students studying in the Old City who view
the Christian religion with disdain.

“I’m sure the phenomenon would end as soon as rabbis and well-known
educators denounce it. In practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even
encourage it,” he says.

Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian
bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. “A group of yeshiva
students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched.”

Jerusalem municipal officials said they are aware of the problem but
it has to be dealt with by the police. Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the police
spokesman, said they had only two complaints from Christians in the
past two years. He said that, in both cases, the culprits were caught
and punished.

He said the police deploy an inordinately high number of patrols and
special technology in the Old City and its surroundings in an attempt
to keep order.