Worldwide Faith News (press release)
Oct 19 2004

Spitting triggers Jewish-Christian tension in Jerusalem’s Old City

by Michele Green
Ecumenical News International

JERUSALEM – Tensions in Jerusalem’s Old City have flared following an
incident in which a Jewish seminary student spat at an archbishop
during a procession from the city’s Armenian Quarter to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, a site commemorating Jesus’ crucifixion and
burial.

Israeli police arrested the seminary student, but Christian clerics
living in the walled Old City say such assaults by ultra-Orthodox
Jews is a frequent occurrence.

“It happens maybe once a week,” Armenian Bishop Aris Shirvanian told
Ecumenical News International. “As soon as they notice a Christian
clergymanhey spit. Those who are ‘respectful’ turn their backs to us
or the largeross that we may carry but the ones that are daring
either spit on the ground or on the person without any provocation on
our part.”

In the Oct. 10 incident, a cross was ripped from the archbishop’s
neck when a scuffle broke out after the Jewish seminary student spat
at the cleric. The seminary student later told police he had done it
because he sawthe religious procession as idolatry. Police said the
man had been temporarily banned from visiting the Old City and that
he had been placed on bail pending an indictment.

Bishop Shirvanian said spitting against Christian clergyman had been
going on for years and that the assailants were religious Jews,
sometimes men but also women, teenagers and even children.

“This shows that it is a phenomenon that is prevailing in their
religious education and it should be corrected,” he said.

Daniel Rossing, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian
relations, said his organization was collating accounts of spitting
incidents so they could approach rabbis and demand they teach their
congregants to stop such attacks.

“All people are created in the image of God and to spit on another
person is to spit on the image of God,” Rossing said. He said that
usually the assailants were ultra-Orthodox Jews and the victims were
“people wearing liturgical vestments or are wearing a manifest
Christian symbol such as a cross.” Rossing said he believed the
attacks were carried out due to intolerance towards Christians by
ultra-Orthodox Jews as well as to anger from religious persecution in
past centuries.

Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said few Christians file
complaints with police about such assaults and unless they did it was
impossible to arrest and prosecute the assailants.

“We can only act when we have been informed by a complainant. When we
do know about it we act immediately to arrest the person who did it
and bring them to justice,” Kleiman said.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in an Oct. 12 editorial: “It is
intolerable that Christian citizens of Jerusalem suffer from the
shameful spitting at or near a crucifix. Similar behavior toward Jews
anywhere in the world would immediately prompt vehement responses.”