This is not a joke or exaggeration...
In October 2023, videos emerged from Jerusalem's Old City showing ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground near Christian pilgrims and clergy during processions (including one carrying a cross). Israeli police arrested several suspects for the harassment.
Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded on Army Radio: He called it "not a criminal case," said it should be handled through "instruction and education" rather than arrests, and referenced it as an "ancient Jewish custom" or longstanding tradition.
This came amid multiple reported incidents of spitting, verbal abuse, and harassment targeting Christians in Jerusalem.
Important context:
- Historians note that any related medieval symbolic practice (spitting during certain prayers as rejection of idolatry, sometimes near churches) was limited, not directed at people, discouraged by later Jewish law codes due to provocation risks, and never a mainstream "custom" of targeting Christians.
- Yet Ben-Gvir, overseeing national security and police, downplayed criminal enforcement. Incidents have continued to be reported in subsequent years.
To Christian Americans—especially evangelicals who strongly back Israel for biblical, strategic, and moral reasons:
How long will we pretend not to see patterns of disrespect and harassment against our fellow believers in the Holy Land?
Spitting on clergy or pilgrims isn't "just a custom"... it's harassment. In any society, governments should protect religious minorities equally, not minimize attacks from extremists within their own camp. Christian patriarchs and leaders in Jerusalem have raised alarms for years about feeling increasingly unsafe.
Condemn antisemitism fiercely. Condemn anti-Christian bigotry just as fiercely. Demand better from so-called allies.
Christians being targeted in the land where Christianity was born deserves our attention, needs to be condemned strongly.
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