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Persecuting Christians in Jerusalem

Attacks on Orthodox Christian clergy in the Old City of Jerusalem are becoming more common, Ha’aretz reports. The attackers? Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Excerpt: The Greek Patriarchy’s clergymen have been cursed and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men in the street for many years. “They walk past me and spit,” says Father Gabriel Bador, 78, a senior priest […]

Attacks on Orthodox Christian clergy in the Old City of Jerusalem are becoming more common, Ha’aretz reports. The attackers? Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Excerpt:

The Greek Patriarchy’s clergymen have been cursed and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men in the street for many years. “They walk past me and spit,” says Father Gabriel Bador, 78, a senior priest in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. “Mostly I ignore it, but it’s difficult.

Sometimes I stop and ask the spitter ‘why are you doing this? What have I done to you?’ Once I even shouted at a few of them who spat at my feet together. They ran away,” he says.

“It happens a lot,” says Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the patriarchate. “You walk down the street and suddenly they spit at you for no reason. I admit sometimes it makes me furious, but we have been taught to restrain ourselves, so I do so.”

Disgusting. Israel’s best non-Jewish friends in the world are American Christians like me. But I read stories like this and wonder why the Israeli authorities aren’t arresting these Ultra-Orthodox jerks. Are they afraid of them politically? Why don’t Evangelical Christians, who have influence in Israel, speak out on behalf of their fellow Christians, who, according to Ha’aretz, cannot walk the streets where Jesus walked without being spat on by these bigoted zealots. I bet if the Israeli government started getting pressure from U.S. Evangelicals, that would compel them to take action.

(H/T: Andrew Sullivan)

 

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