Israel’s enemies often accuse the Jewish state of persecuting religious minorities. In almost all cases, this is propaganda. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christian holy sites are protected by law, where Christian communities have access to courts, the media, diplomats, aid organizations, and open public debate, and where religious freedom is part of the state’s founding commitment. The Declaration of Independence guarantees “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture" and pledges to protect the holy sites of all religions.
Precisely for this reason, the recent phenomenon of harassment against Christians in Jerusalem must be stated clearly: without evasions, without whitewashing, and without excuses.
The problem is real. The Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, a Jerusalem-based organization that builds interfaith bridges, documented no fewer than 155 incidents against Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem in 2025. The report describes harassment and violence against Christian communities, mainly in Jerusalem and other sensitive areas, and also examines enforcement patterns and the attitudes of the Jewish-Israeli public toward Christians and Christianity.
The Religious Freedom Data Center separately reported 181 incidents of harassment in 2025 that targeted Christians, Christian symbols, and Christian institutions in Israel. According to its annual summary, about 60 percent of the incidents involved spitting - about 109 cases; 18 percent involved verbal insults or humiliation - about 32 cases; 12 percent involved vandalism or damage to religious symbols - about 22 cases; and 5 percent involved physical violence - about 9 cases.
A notable recent case illustrates the severity of the phenomenon. In May 2026, Yona Schreiber, a Jew from Padua, was indicted for allegedly assaulting a Catholic nun near the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the indictment, the attack stemmed from hostility toward a religious group because the victim was wearing religious clothing that identified her as a Catholic nun.
It is not “anti-Israeli" to say this. On the contrary, it is a pro-Israeli statement aimed at law enforcement because the law is with them. A sovereign Jewish state cannot tolerate Jewish extremists who spit on priests, harass nuns, deface church property, or treat Christian clergy and pilgrims as if they were invading Jerusalem. Such acts are morally reprehensible, legally unacceptable, and devoid of any religious defense.
The data also prevents lazy generalizations. In the wider Middle East, persecution of Christians is often filled with violence, driven by Islamist regimes, jihadist movements, or social pressure in Muslim countries. This regional reality is well documented. But the incidents discussed here-in Jerusalem and Israel-are of a different kind. The Rossing Center’s 2025 findings report that the attackers in the incidents documented were mostly from among Haredi or ultra-nationalist circles.
This distinction is important. The goal is not to blame Israeli govenment, Israeli society or Judaism. The goal is to deal with extremist fringes, whose behavior violates the laws of the State of Israel, harms its moral credibility, and desecrates the Torah in whose name they claim to act.
The broader context is important, but does not excuse the findings. According to Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026, which ranks the 50 countries where Christians suffer the most severe levels of persecution, more than 388 million Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution and discrimination, even death, because of their faith, including more than 315 million Christians in the top 50 countries. In addition to Africa, where Christians have been slaughtered by Moslem terrorist organizations, several countries in our region are among the most dangerous places for Christians, including Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Iran, all in the top 10. Israel does not appear on this list.
Anti-Christian hostility is also not just a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In Europe, the European Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians identified 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes in 2024, including 274 personal attacks and a sharp increase in arson attacks against Christian churches and sites. The countries with the highest number of incidents were France, Britain, Germany, Spain, and Austria. In the United States, the FBI reported 11,679 hate crime incidents in 2024, including 13,683 related offenses. Religious bias remains one of the main categories the FBI tracks, including crimes against Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious groups.
These comparisons do not belittle what is happening in Jerusalem. They clarify it. Anti-Christian harassment in Israel is not state policy, and it is not Jewish doctrine. It is the behavior of an extreme minority in a time of war, social polarization, religious extremism, and moral erosion that is harming many societies around the world. But even an extreme minority can cause real harm - to Christian communities, to Jerusalem, to the name of Israel, and to the honor of the Torah.
The religious argument is even stronger. The Torah repeatedly reiterates the prohibition against harming a stranger-the foreigner, the resident alien, or the vulnerable person living among us-because the Israelites were also residents in the land of Egypt: “You shall not oppress a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:20); “You shall not oppress a stranger, and you know the soul of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9); “And if a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not oppress him… and you shall love him as yourself" (Leviticus 19:33-33); and “And you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:19).
One must be careful not to mix up all the halakhic categories: in the words of the Sages, “stranger" can refer to a righteous stranger, and in other contexts to a resident alien or a stranger living among Israel. But the moral direction of the Torah is absolutely clear. Jewish power is supposed to be restrained by Jewish memory. The vulnerable and foreign person should not be humiliated.
In relation to foreigners living among Jews, the Talmudic sages established a direct framework: paths of peace. In Tractate Gittin, the Talmud teaches that poor foreigners are supported with the poor of Israel, sick foreigners are visited with the sick of Israel, and the dead of foreigners are buried with the dead of Israel - because of the paths of peace. Maimonides, one of the greatest of the poskim and author of the authoritative book of halachah Mishneh Torah, rules this in Halakhah of Kings and Wars, Chapter 10, Halachah 12, and bases this not only on social convenience but also on the verses: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all his works" (Psalms 10:9), and “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace" (Proverbs 3:17).
But it is not just about peaceful means. It is also about blasphemy-the desecration of the name of God in the world. In Tractate Yoma, the Talmud teaches that when a Jew identified with the Torah behaves in a way that causes people to say, “Woe to so-and-so who has learned Torah," he is blaspheming the name of God. Maimonides rules on this principle in the Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, Chapter 5, Halakha 11, and explains that even behavior that is not necessarily defined as an independent offense may be considered blasphemy when it causes disrespect for the Torah and the Jewish people.
If the Halakha requires compassion and communal responsibility toward non-Jews in poverty, illness, and death, it certainly cannot tolerate spitting on Christian clergy, harassing nuns, or vandalizing church property in Jerusalem. When Jews commit such acts, the world does not see just the private act of a mischievous teenager. It sees a desecration of Judaism, the Torah, and the Jewish state.
Therefore, the response cannot be cosmetic. The laws of the State of Israel must be enforced. The police must treat spitting, harassment, vandalism, and assaults as serious offenses-not as background noise in the Old City. The Religious Freedom Data Center reported that in 2025 it assisted in filing 33 complaints with the police, along with at least 12 additional complaints filed directly by Christians or following proactive police action. It was also reported that most of the complaints were closed, some are still under investigation, and the rate of indictments remains very low.
There are also positive signs, and they come from within the Orthodox rabbinical world itself. The annual summary of the Religious Freedom Data Center noted that senior rabbis have recently issued clear statements against spitting and attacks on Christians, including Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz.
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Safed and a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council, said of the phenomenon of spitting at Christians in Jerusalem: “This is so contrary to Judaism. I don’t know where this spitting came from. It’s not ours." This sentence is important. It neither apologizes nor defends. It sets a clear boundary: This behavior is outside the boundaries of Torah Judaism.
Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, former rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, was no less blunt. Addressing reports of young Jews cursing and spitting at Christian clergy, he wrote that “this act is absolutely forbidden," constitutes blasphemy and a provocation to the nations, and “this is not the way of the Torah."
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Places, rejected the claim that there is a legitimate Jewish origin for the custom of spitting when passing by churches, religious figures, or Christian symbols. According to the text of the published halachic reply, he emphasized that it has “no halakhic origin," because it leads to blasphemy, causes serious harm to Jews and Jewish institutions in Israel and around the world, and is “an ugly and forbidden act."
This is where the discussion should end: not with denial, not with propaganda, not with “what about the others." Israel should not accept the lie that it is persecuting Christians. It should firmly reject this accusation. But rejecting a lie does not require denying a real problem.
The Torah is not protected when foreigners are humiliated in the Jewish state. Jewish sovereignty is not strengthened when extremists make religious minorities feel threatened.
A Jewish state must be strong enough to fight its enemies - and honest enough to restrain the extremists within. Protecting Christians in Jerusalem is not a concession to foreign governments, churches, or hostile organizations. It is a Jewish duty, an Israeli duty, and a fundamental test of moral sovereignty.
The rabbis said what needed to be said: This behavior is forbidden, is not the path of the Torah, and is blasphemy-the desecration of the name of God in the world.
And this must stop.