Jerusalem: Two Arrested for Spitting on a Benedictine

The victim is Fr. Nikodemus Schnabel, a German Benedictine, Abbot of the Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem. He was walking in the streets of the Old City when he was apprehended by two youths wearing the kippah and the tallit katan, a traditional Jewish garment. One of the youths allegedly spat on him. The Benedictine grabbed his camera to report the individuals to the police.

Several videos of the incident were posted on X. In one of them, one of the two youths can be seen trying to intimidate Fr. Schnabel so that he does not take a photo of him. When other people intervene, the two youths finally decide to leave at the order of an armed passerby. Before leaving, they shouted obscenities in the direction of the Benedictine monk.

Fr. Schnabel said that the footage of the incident shows “a part of the reality of his life which is rarely filmed. I did not seek to gain publicity with these images, because there are much more terrible things that people must endure here. Let us pray for peace and reconciliation.”

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (LPJ) also denounced an attack “unprovoked and shameful. The prosecution of the perpetrators of these hate crimes is an important means of deterring them and reinforcing the feeling of security of Christian clergy in the Holy Land, especially in Jerusalem,” asserts the LPJ in a communiqué.

Reaction from the Authorities

The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, condemned the spitting and the verbal attack on Fr. Schnabel. Katz stated on X that it was “another hideous incident” and added that he “totally condemned these hideous acts against members of other religions.”

“Under the Israeli regime,” he continued, “members of all confessions enjoy total freedom of worship, as was never formerly the case. In the words of the prophet: ‘My house will be a house of prayer for all nations.’”

But the picture of secure coexistence generally depicted by Israeli officials is in flagrant contradiction with the experiences described by Jerusalem’s Christian leaders themselves.

While willingly recognizing that there is no organized or governmental effort directed directly against them, the Christian clergy of the Old City speak of a deteriorating atmosphere of harassment, the apathy of the authorities, and of the growing fear that incidents of spiting and vandalism could transform into violence against their persons.

Tolerance From Others

The proof that this accusation is founded is provided by a member of the government. At the beginning of October, the police arrested five Orthodox Jews suspected of having spit on Christian faithful in the Jerusalem’s Old City, in a context of the multiplication of incidents targeting priests and pilgrims in the capital.

The Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir, then spoke in an interview with army radio. “I still think that spitting on Christians is not a criminal act. I think that we must act through instruction and education. Not everything justifies an arrest.”

Before entering into politics, Ben-Gvir had in the past justified spitting against Christians by calling it “an ancient Jewish custom.”