Published: 7 February 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Since the beginning of the year, there have been five cases of vandalism or violence by Jews against Christians.
On the morning of Thursday, February 2, a man entered the Chapel of Flagellation in the Old City of Jerusalem, allegedly built on the site where Pontius Pilate handed over Jesus for execution and the first of the Stations of the Cross in the Catholic tradition.
The vandal struck a wooden statue of Christ with a hammer. A video shows him shouting, "You can’t have idols in Jerusalem, this is the holy city!" The church security guard subdued him. Police arrested the vandal, an American tourist and Orthodox Jew, and sent him for psychiatric examination.
This was the fifth attack in five weeks against Christians, their places of worship and their properties in the Holy Land, compared with 13 in the whole of 2020 and nine in 2021, according to figures collected by the Jerusalem Inter-church Center and the Protecting Holy Land Christians campaign, which covers various Christian churches.
In a statement, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said, "It is no coincidence that the legitimation of discrimination and violence in public opinion and in the current Israeli political environment also translates into acts of hatred and violence against the Christian community."
"Welcome to the new Christian-hating Israel, encouraged and supported by the current government!" tweeted Father Nikodemus Schnabel of the Dormition Abbey, just outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem.
READ MORE
In Jerusalem, attacks on Christians are on the rise (Lemonade)
Is ‘Jewish supremacy’ translating into anti-Christian violence in Jerusalem? (Religion News)
Photo: The statue of Jesus after it was vandalised at the Church of the Condemnation and Imposition of the Cross at Station II in the Via Dolorosa (EPA/ATEF SAFADI)
