Six Religious Jews Arrested for Attacking Armenian Monastery in Jerusalem

Six religious Jews have been arrested after attacking the historic St. James Armenian Monastery in Jerusalem’s Old City, according to Israeli police. The group, consisting of five minors and one adult, were caught on video spitting on and banging against the monastery entrance on Sunday night before throwing stones at the walls of the compound, which serves as the regional headquarters of the Armenian Church. When an Armenian woman began filming the attack from a nearby building, the assailants hurled stones toward her window and shouted abuse at her. Police subsequently located and arrested all six suspects. Three have been barred from entering the Old City for 15 days, while police have asked a Jerusalem court to extend the detention of the remaining three. The Armenian Patriarchate has filed a formal complaint and called on US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to press Israel to recognize such incidents as hate crimes. The assault is the latest in a growing wave of attacks on Christians, clergy, and church property in Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories. Christian leaders say priests and pilgrims are routinely spat on, cursed and assaulted by ultra-Orthodox and radical nationalist Jews, while churches, monasteries, and Christian-owned property have been vandalized. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that young religious Jews have openly described humiliating Christians as a religious duty. The newspaper documented at least a dozen spitting incidents near the Armenian church during a single nationalist march in May. It also recalled an April attack in which a Jewish extremist shoved a French nun to the ground on Mount Zion, leaving her with a head injury. Some nuns are now reportedly too afraid to walk through Jerusalem alone and are escorted daily by volunteers. Christians today are routinely “hit, spit at, beaten,” Dormition Abbey Abbot Nikodemus Schnabel told the outlet, adding that this is “not the case of one lost soul,” and that many similar incidents are never documented. According to the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, reported incidents have nearly doubled between 2023 and 2025 and are on course to reach another record this year. Critics say extremists have been emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and senior officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. In a 2017 radio interview, Ben-Gvir defended spitting at priests and churches as an “ancient Jewish tradition” and questioned why the practice should be treated as a crime. After becoming the minister responsible for Israeli law enforcement, he again argued in 2023 that spitting on Christians was “not a criminal case.” Israeli officials have insisted that they are confronting the problem and view violence and racism “with the utmost severity.” Church leaders, however, have said that complaints frequently produce little action and warn that continued violence, settlement expansion, and political hostility are driving some of the Holy Land’s oldest Christian communities to leave.