HOLY SPIT: WHY DO ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWS SPIT AT CHRISTIANS?
By Shalom Goldman
Religion Dispatches
ve/religionandtheology/2401/holy_spit:_why_do_ultr a-orthodox_jews_spit_at_christians
April 7 2010
A bold new forum was recently organized to confront a persistent
problem in Jewish-Christian relations in Jerusalem. But why are
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish teens spitting on Christians in the first place?
A very embarrassing and persistent problem has arisen in some of the
sacred sites in Jerusalem where Christians and Jews cross each other’s
paths. Teenagers from a small sector of the city’s many Ultra-Orthodox
("Haredi") Ashkenazi Jewish communities have taken to spitting at
clerics wearing prominent crosses and dressed in traditional garb.
Assaults have been recorded at the Jaffa and Damascus Gates of the
walled Old City, an area with many historic churches and monasteries,
including the Polish Church of St. Elizabeth. To address the problem
a remarkable interfaith forum, appropriately titled "Why do do some
Jews spit at Christians in the Old City," under the auspices of the
Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel and the Jerusalem Center
for Christian-Jewish Relations.
These spitting assaults have been going on for at least a decade, and
like many expressions of tension in Jerusalem, the attacks represent
scores that many observers thought were settled long ago. For
spitting at crosses and clerics was not unknown in those parts of
Christian Europe where Jews and Judaism were often persecuted and
where this represented the only recourse for a powerless people to
express contempt.
In the thinking of many less-acculturated European Jews–particularly
in Eastern Europe–spitting or cursing was a way to express disdain
for a religion which sprang from Judaism and then persecuted it. The
official Israeli Rabbinate (to whom the members of the Ultra-Orthodox
communities don’t profess any loyalty) has condemned the assaults.
Last year the state-appointed Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yonah Metzger,
called the spitting attacks "an evil affliction," though the Haredi
rabbis refused to issue a similar condemnation.
Leaders from several Christian groups (among them were Catholic,
Armenian, and Greek Orthodox clerics and seminarians) have been
complaining to the Israeli police about the assaults for years. But
the police, who are very skittish about entering interreligious
disputes, have done little to stop the assaults. Last September,
after two Armenian seminarians were spit upon by two Haredim, they
fought back–with their fists–and were subsequently arrested for
assault. It was only after the highest Christian authorites in the
city intervened that the Israeli government rescinded its order that
the Armenian seminarians be deported from the country.
While Jewish-Christian relations in the city surely are in need of
some repair, these problems seem small in the face of deteriorating
Jewish-Muslim relations. But while Jewish-Muslim tensions dominate
the headlines, most Israeli liberals feel that there is little that
they can do to improve that situation; a situation (hamatzav, or the
situation in Hebrew) enmeshed in political and military consideration.
The excacerbation of Jewish-Christian tensions, on the other hand,
seems like a problem that ordinary citizens can address–and some
Christians and Jews are doing just that.
The forum’s most impressive speaker, Armenian Bishop Shirvanian, is
the designated leader of the procession from the Armenian monastery to
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Perhaps the most shocking moment of
the evening was the Archbishop’s statement that he had been assaulted
by two Haredi teenagers on the very day of the forum while standing
in front of the Armenian Cathedral of St. James. The Bishop told the
audience that "I had hoped to come here this evening to tell you that
the assaults on the clergy had stopped. But I’m afraid I can’t."
What then, asked the forum’s organizers, was behind these assaults?
Different opinions were offered. Some mentioned the reversal of
the traditional Christian-Jewish power relationship. The centuries
old-experience of European Jewry (in which Jews and Judaism were often
denigrated) has in modern Israel been upended. In the historical past,
Jews may have denigrated Christians and Christianity, but they had no
way to publicly express their disdain for the dominant religion. And
there was certainly no possibility of publicly expressing one of
the prevalent Jewish ideas about Christianity: that it is a form
of idolatry.
In Israel, Jews are in charge, and the Christian clergy, especially
in East Jerusalem, are subject to the dictates of the Israeli
administration. This new power relationship seems to have emboldened
some Haredim to express their contempt for Christianity openly–and
in a manner that is culturally familiar to them from other hostile
encounters. When Ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators objecting to
government policies confront the Israeli police, for example, they
often spit at them, as they did this past October when they took to
the streets of Jerusalem to protest the opening of a local parking
lot on the Sabbath.
Other speakers descried the growing xenophobia in Israeli Jewish
society, especially among the young; one cited a recent Israeli
public opinion poll that found that 56% of Israeli Jewish high school
students polled did not think that Israeli Arabs are entitled to the
full rights of citizenry.
But despite the pessimistic tone taken by many, the
organizers–committed to peaceful conflict resolution–ended the
forum by announcing a series of lectures, tours, and encounters that
would introduce Israeli Jews to the lives and concerns of their
non-Jewish neighbors. And, somewhat encouragingly, they informed
the attendees that the Rabbinical Court of the Edah Haharedit (one
of the more powerful of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authorities)
had issued an edict condemning the spitting assaults. Thus a year
after the "government rabbis" tried to stem this obnoxious behavior,
some Ultra-Orthodox rabbis followed suit. Whether this letter will
have the desired effect on people’s behavior in this far-from-united
city remains to be seen.