ADL Calls On Chief Rabbis to Speak Out Against Interfaith Assaults I

ADL Calls On Chief Rabbis to Speak Out Against Interfaith Assaults In Old City

Anti-Defamation League
October 17, 2004

PRESS RELEASE
Israel / Middle East

Jerusalem, October 17, 2004 — The Israel Office of the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) called on Israel’s two Chief Rabbis to speak out against
the phenomenon of attacks against Christians by Jewish students
studying in yeshivas in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In letters sent to Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sepharadi
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, ADL’s Israel Office said:

We are writing to share our deep concern and revulsion at the event
that took place last week in the Old City when a yeshiva student spat
at Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Archbishop of Jerusalem.

After the student was arrested he told the authorities that
he perpetrated this act to protest idol worship. If this was an
isolated incident perhaps it could be simply blamed on bad behavior
by a misguided and disrespectful teenager. However, such incidents
are not at all rare. This disgraceful behavior perpetuated by a
minority of yeshiva students has been occurring for years.

We are now calling upon you to use your public position to speak out
quickly and firmly against this clear violation of Jewish ethical
teaching and to make clear to rabbis and teachers who are educating
yeshiva students in Jerusalem and elsewhere that such behavior is
a terrible moral offense and a stain on the name of Jewish people
everywhere.

Particularly in this time of rising anti-Semitism we do not tolerate
such conduct toward Jews anywhere in the world and such conduct toward
non-Jews must not be tolerated in the Jewish state. Maintaining quiet
and respectful relations between faiths in Jerusalem is both a national
and spiritual value.

We believe that you can do much to help combat this phenomenon both
publicly and privately and call upon you to use your esteemed position
to do so at this time.