wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Spitting triggers Jewish-Christian tension in

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Note #8536 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04467
October 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 clergyman
they spit. Those who are 'respectful' turn their backs to us or the large
cross 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 saw
the 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."

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