Rabbis Send Letter To Monks Condemning Church Attack; Haredi Rabbis Mostly AWOL

Dozens of Orthodox rabbis from Israel and Europe have written a letter to the monks of the Latrun Monastery. The monastery was vandalized last week, apparently by West Bank Jewish settlers or their sympathizers who painted “Jesus is a monkey” and pro-settler slogans on the monastery wall and set the front door on fire.

"Yeshua kof", "Jesus [is a] monkey" painted on the Latrum Monastery wall

Rabbis Send Letter To Monks Condemning Church Attack; Haredi Rabbis Mostly AWOL
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Dozens of Orthodox rabbis from Israel and Europe have written a letter to the monks of the Latrun Monastery, Ynet reports. The monastery was vandalized last week, apparently by West Bank Jewish settlers or their sympathizers who painted “Jesus is a monkey” and pro-settler slogans on the monastery wall and set the front door on fire.

The rabbis’ letter condemned the attack.

"We would like to express our shock in light of the acts of vandalism directed at your monastery, the kind of which have been directed in recent months against other churches and mosques across the country…
We deeply regret the disrespect you were shown by members of our religion and people.…We believe there is no room for expressions of hatred and hostility towards any person of a different faith… Our Torah's ways are pleasant and peaceful.…The love of Israel must not be based on the hatred of others."

The rabbis, who also reportedly wrote that they had conducted a process of "self-examination" in the wake of the vandalism, concluded the letter with the hope that the Latrun monks would “accept this expression of sympathy as well as our renewed commitment to work to increase the understanding between members of the different religions in the Land of Israel."

The letter was reportedly written to calm growing tensions with the Christian world following the vandalism, which itself followed a long string of spitting attacks by haredi Jews against Christian clergy in Jerusalem’s Old City, and arson and vandalism attacks against several mosques and churches, all allegedly carried out by Jewish settlers.

Rabbis who signed the letter include former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Eliyahu Bakshi Doron; Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Hacohen, Chairman of the Council for Dialogue between Judaism and Islam; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain; Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France; Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland; Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chabad’s Chief Rabbi of Russia;  Rabbi Menachem Froman, Chief Rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Tekoa; Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, Rosh Yeshiva of the Petach Tikvah Hesder Yeshiva; and Rabbi Michael Melchior.

All of the named rabbis are Modern Orthodox, except for Lazar.
   
Ynet’s report does not account for the absence of haredi signatures.

Related Post: “Jesus Is A Monkey” Painted On Monastery By Jewish Extremists.

Comments

[God is not amused]

God bless them. It was the right thing to do.

[Alter Kocker]

The best thing that Israel can do is to hunt down and arrest the Haredi thugs that perpetrated this crime. Let the press see that the trial is fair and sentence them to the maximum. If they were aided and abetted by their community, it would serve them well to pay for reparations or return the monastery to pristine condition. We must show that we are not the religion of thuggery and thievery. Our Haredi brethren had better get this through their thick skulls: we live in a modern world, we need to learn to get along with everyone, that includes those that do not believe as they do. Intolerance sent 6 million of us to the gas chamber, why would we mimic the actions of our executioners.

[Reb Chaim]

It's easy to tell that this grafiti was sprayed by a haredi jerk. How? Note that the final fe is written in block form rather than cursive as are all the other letters. These dummies probably are given few if any classes in penmanship, so that this particular jerk didn't even know the difference between the two forms of writing Hebrew letters.

[rebitzman]

This must be the next wave of diaper throwing. We recently had something similar done to the door of our shul - a comparrison in Hebrew between our rabbi and a female dog.

We rather fortunately arrived while it was still wet, and they rather stupidly painted it on a non-porous surface and were able to clean it off entirely shortly after the police took pictures.

Can't say for certain who did it, but there are precious few Hebrew speakers in this area outside our congregation and the haredim out at the slaughterhouse.
____________________

To the article: Agree with the sentiment of the letter and am appauled that anyone jewish (especially this time of year) would choose not to sign a letter like this.

[Sarek]

Somehow I'm not overly impressed by this letter, because it's something that SHOULD be done. I'm not sure kudos are called for when the rabbis who signed are just doing their jobs.

I guess it's a sad commentary that we're happy this letter was written because we expected less of them.

[IAmSoSorry]

Dozens of Orthodox rabbis from Israel and Europe have written a letter to the monks of the Latrun Monastery,

Not enough, we need hundreds! In fact all Jews, not just rabbis should send letters of apology.

Could you post to whom and where the letters should be addressed to.

[Dave]

I agree that the rabbis and all Jews should be appalled by such behaviour.
However, IMHO, Christianity is still idolatry. However those Haredim should learn from "less religious" Jews and just IGNORE the churches.

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

It is obviously written by an American Haredi (or at least non native Hebrew speaker), fir the pay sofit is not written as Israelis write it, American Hebrew text books do not use the script for Pey sofit.

Also, Israelis use ישו to describe the son of God not ישוע

[Garnel Ironheart]

Um, maybe I've missed it in all the reports but where is the proof it was settlers from Yesha? Much less Chareidi ones?
Frankly, the only evidence it might be from Chareidim is because calling someone a "goyishe kop" is a traditional insult in Yiddish so this graffiti which clearly can be translated from the Yiddish "Jesus head" implicates a Chasidic source.
Or is it possibly Arabs (many of whom also struggle with Hebrew) who did this and then sat back as you all piled on with your usual "Guilty even when proven otherwise" attitudes?

[Maskil]

Yeah, I noticed it too. I don't think that someone who knows how to write this would write it quite this way. It is unique. In Israel everyone is familiar with ישו, while few think it through well enough to calculate that it is short for ישוע. But ישו is so common that Israel Shahak claimed that it is deliberate because it stands for ימח שמו וזכרו. It appears that way in the Talmud, although those sections are generally neither learned not taught in the U.S. Also, the handwriting was quite smooth with the names of the settlements, showing no hesitation, even similar to a female's handwriting (they show less hesitation and more coordination in writing), but not necessarily. Variations in writing are not uncommon in Haredi yeshivas (generally mimicking script of older or dead scholars from a different time or place), and the pey peshuta is definitely one of the variable letters (although I have never seen this particular variation). A yeshiva student may also be more likely to write the full name, ישוע, but is less likely to be able to name that many settlements. This unique combo that Bassy points out, in my opinion, raises some interesting questions regarding the source of the vandalism.

[PrettyBoyFloyd]

But how can you question the author of the graffiti attack, when Shmarya already Paskened that it was commited by frum Jews?? How dare you?

[Bob Guthrie]

Posted by: PrettyBoyFloyd
"But how can you question the author of the graffiti attack, when Shmarya..." (Snip)

...And nothing of value was lost.

Now go pretend to be asphalt in front of a Steamroller, skippy.

[George Walker]

the haredim believe that it is a true statement so they cannot apologize for it. They lack the common sense to know when to be diplomatic; they think being diplomatic is a sign of lack of emunah. The main problem is the general Israeli ignorance of the fact that we are still in galus even ba'aretz and have no authority to act up against the goyim

[Dave]

George, we're weak because some of us discourage converts, some of us are racist (only lily-white converts accepted) and others are afraid to do outreach to non-Jews. Our Torah, and the Tanach as a whole, can sell themselves. If the Tanach was a product, I would say "sales of 170 million units in 20 years- EASY". We wouldn't even have to compromise halacha.

[No Light]

Bob - that's terribly offensive. Asphalt is a useful, versatile product.

Don't insult it's good name by using it in proximity to UglyKidJew. He's more like landfill, or sewage.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

these morons are sure looking for an apocalyptic end to their problems.
'price tag' has 'gone international' now with the utube movie that so far led to the murder of few american diplomats!

[The Anti-Schmendrick]

This is probably an Arab or ShaBaK inside job. The poor Hebrew style could indeed be the work of an unbalanced foreign BT wannabe who was paid or influenced by a shtinker, but it could also be the work of an Arab.

[Dror Xanthos]

With hindsight of the recent "spitting spate"(by Haredim of Christian clergy)the immediate above is not very
convincing.