New York, NY – The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called on the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to publicly denounce the repulsive decades-old practice by ultra-Orthodox Jews of spitting at Christian clergymen they encounter in the street.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“This repulsive practice is a hateful act of persecution against another faith group and a desecration of God’s name according to Jewish law,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “This display of hate and bigotry has no place in Israel and is inimical to Jewish values of treating all people with respect and kindness.”
In a letter to Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger, ADL urged the rabbinical leaders to meet with Haredi leaders in an effort to end the practice and to join together to educate their community about having respect for coexistence with other faiths.
“The issue makes headlines every few years, and promises are made to combat it, but it continues every day,” said Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg, ADL Director of Interfaith Affairs. “We believe it is time for Israel’s religious leaders to stand up for the Jewish values of treating others with respect and kindness, and to put an end to this ugly phenomenon.”
Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Judge Dov Pollock recently dismissed the indictment of a Greek Orthodox priest who punched a Haredi yeshiva student in the face after the student spat at him in Jerusalem’s Old City. Judge Pollock noted that this practice has been recurring for years, and that authorities have not been able to identify the perpetrators or to stop these acts.
Never heard of this one– embarrassing, to say the least.
Oh come on, has the ADL ran out of stuff to worry about? The amount of Chareidim who spit upon priests is probably a one digit number – maximum a few dozen. Just because there are a few lunatics who behave unruly, it doesn’t make it an “Ultra-Orthodox problem”. If a few Ultra-Orthodox people dance with a Palistinian flag does it make it an “Ultra-Orthodox problem”?
You have to be kidding me. Jews doing unto others what we have painfully had done to our own souls in life. Extremely wicked and extremely foolish. Too bad that there is such animosity in some circles of our Jewish people against all things that are not jewish. This is not kosher and we are not the light unto the nations in this climate.
cont.
If some Secular Jews killed some people does that make it a “Secular Problem”?
Abe Foxman is really bored!
If they are all so pious why then aren’t they spitting on ZIONISTS??!!
He’s making this one up. What was there, one case? That’s so typical of the uber left.
I tell you I would spit at Foxman if I saw him!
I remember doing this when i was a kid, and thinking it was a Mitzvah..
I am ultra orthodox and I have never ever seen or heard of this, perhaps there are some ultra extremists that do this but then I am sure there are plenty of crazy things they might do, this is certainly not a common ultra-orthodox practice by any means.
is it just me or is the ADL the jewish al sharpton?
Since when do the people who do the spitting listen to the Chief Rabbinate?
I never understood why people need to put down and hate the beliefs of others in order to strengthen their own beliefs. If your belief system doesn’t have enough to offer on its own merit, without the need to demean others, then you should start looking for another system. Having spent time in both chabad and Litvish yeshivos, I found this practice all too common amongst both. Pretty pathetic.
Priests walk in Boro park Wilamsberg CH flatbush etc – no one spits at them.
Putting aside the issues of Dina demalchusah Dinah and chillul Hashem which clearly forbid such practice, is one allowed to spit at an idol worshipped?
This is slander. There is no custom or “age old practice”” of spitting.
Calm down all.
I never heard of this, and I’m as religious as they get.
ADL should take care of some other issues (like the guy who spit at me this week because I am prominently Jewish-on a city bus-in the centre of town-and we were not the only ones on the bus ); like the world spitting right at the Jews-in public places.
Come one ADL-there are still enough neo-Nazis out there before you turn on us.
I must join with all the others who have never heard of this “age old practice” Where did the ADL hear of this libel? Reminds one of some of the Xian accusations in Europe that led to pogroms.
Well, as a gentile I can safely say you all have NOTHING to worry about, because I have never heard of this practice, nor do I believe it’s something a lot of Jews are walking around doing! (lol)
Most Jewish people I know (and DON’T know, for that matter) behave quite civilized in public & I can hardly imagine one acting like this!
Yes ok, I’ve seen a few nasty videos of some Jewish people picking on x-tian missionaries in Israel… but hey, those x-tians missionaries have SURGED in Israel in the past 10 years!
They used to just go to the remotest places on earth to bug people w\their nonsense… but lately, they’ve seen a LOT of value in hunting down Jewish neshamas right directly in the motherland!
And it’s a shameful practice if you ask me! Even back when my husband & I were in Christianity, we never believed the Jews needed to “convert” anyway!
But these new missionaries are a whole different breed from the ones me & my husband knew! They are going right directly to Israel herself & setting up their Avodah Zara right there!
Spitting is icky… I’m NOT defending that!
But there’s nothing wrong w\being upset about seeing x-tianity ALL over Israel now!
It’s too much!
I never heard of this in my life, I don’t believe that it happens, maybe one or two nut jobs did it, but no way is this something that’s an age old practice or typically done. In fact, I would think that until pretty recently any Jew that would spit on a priest must have had a death wish or knew how to run like the wind!
Are some of you not reading this article in it’s entirety. This is based on cases that recently happened in the old city of Jerusalem. This is not about the streets of Boro Park. This has been in the news since weeks ago because I already read about it a few places. And frankly (it has been more than one case) but even one is enough. It is despicable behavior by Jews and a chilul hashem period. And if the ADL wants to keep their credibility intact when trying to protect Jews from hate crimes by other groups which has been escalating, then of course they have to publicly acknowledge that the act of a Jew spitting on an identifiable priest is a hate crime just the same and needs to be called out by the leaders.
Bottom line is ANYONE spitting at ANYONE is disgusting. For whatever reason. It’s simply disgusting. And it is not a way for a civilized human being, especially a Torah Jew to behave. Ever.
he is talking about Israel not the USA and if your read other papers and web site this have been an issue for a while
of course not many but enough to cause a problem and must be condemned
not that strange
when i was young the rebbie said if you need to pick something up in front of a church make sure your tuchaus faces the church
never in over 20 years here in Israel have I every seen such a thing, not in Meah Shearim, not in the Old City, not anywhere where there are Christians. The ADL should be busy condemning the traitorous American Jews who vote Democrat which constantly defames Jews!
Spitting is uncouth, uncivilized
Such manifestations of the contempt for avoida zora seem out of place in a modern secular state. In the future when we will have Jewish one (bmchera byomeinu) we will simply be able to drive all the vestiges of avoida zora out of Eretz Yisroel but we can’t do it now. But Foxman’s references to “a desecration of G-d’s name” only prove that the man has no shame. Of course we always knew it.