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A toppled cross at the Protestant cemetery at Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, today. Credit: Oliver Hersey Published by Haaretz

Caretakers of the Protestant cemetery inspect vandalized graves on Mount Zion outside Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this January. Credit: AHMAD GHARABLI - AFP Published by Haaretz
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by Yael Freidson for Haaretz
Jan 3, 2023 7:03 pm IST

The Protestant Christian cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem was vandalized on Sunday. Two men broke into the area and desecrated more than 30 graves, said the Jerusalem University College (formerly the American Institute of Holy Land Studies) in a statement.

The two men were filmed by security cameras as they broke into the graveyard at about 3:20 P.M., and broke crosses, toppled headstones, destroyed iconography and threw debris over the cemetery walls. They threw parts of marble crosses at headstones and destroyed graves.

According to the police, a report of the incident was filed and an investigation was opened into the vandalism. Officers from the Old City's police department arrived at the scene and examined the damage.

The police are working with the Jerusalem University College “to restore peace and safety to those residing in the Mount Zion community,” said the college.

The cemetery was established in 1848 and is maintained by the local Lutheran and Anglican communities. Among the graves vandalized were three of British police officers from the British Mandate period and others of the Protestant community, including Bishop Samuel Gobat, the second Protestant bishop of Jerusalem – who purchased the land for the cemetery – and died in 1879.

The cemetery has been vandalized a number of times in the past, and in recent years Christian clergy in the area have suffered from abuse on the part of religious and Haredi Jews. Recently, two Givati infantry brigade soldiers were questioned on suspicions they spit at a procession of Armenian priests in the Old City of Jerusalem.

“We are worried,” said a member of the Protestant community who asked not to be identified by name. “This comes after priests were spat at. There was a case of an attack in the Old City; as a community we are very worried. Our feeling is that they are trying to minimize these incidents, and it does not receive political attention,” he said.

“These things are heating up. Every few years, they desecrate the cemetery. Our hope is that the police and political system will take this incident seriously and do everything they can to protect the communities, with their religious heritage in the city. We want to be optimistic that the authorities will provide us with support,” he added.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said that it "condemns the act of vandalism at the [Protestant] church" in a tweet on Tuesday. "This act is neither religious nor ethical, and its perpetrators must be brought to justice. The State of Israel has guaranteed since its founding freedom of worship and religion for members of every faith, and will continue to be such a home."

Tag Meir, an Israeli organization that fights acts of Jewish religious violence, condemned the attack, which it said "joins many 'price tag' and hate crimes carried out over the years at Dormition Abbey, the Dajani family cemetery and at the seminary connected to the Orthodox church."

The NGO added, "The Israel Police have established a station at the site, which has not succeeded in avoiding the recurrence of these crimes."
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Episcopal Diocese condemns wanton vandalism by Jewish extremists of its Jerusalem cemetery”

by WAFA (Palestinian News Agency)
Jan 4, 2023
Republished by IMEMC News
Jan 5 2023

JERUSALEM, Wednesday, January 04, 2023 (WAFA) – The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem today condemned what it described as the wanton vandalism by Jewish extremists of the Protestant Cemetery in the occupied city of East Jerusalem.

The Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, decried in a press statement the desecration by Jewish vandals of the historic Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion in the occupied city.

“On the morning of January 3, 2023, it was discovered that, sometime over the New Year holidays, vandals had broken into the historic Protestant cemetery on Mt. Zion, where they purposely and relentlessly smashed to pieces more than thirty gravestones, many of them historic. Security camera footage later revealed that these crimes took place beginning around 1520 on January 1st, and that the perpetrators numbered at least two, both young males wearing (the Jewish) kippahs and tallit katans,” the statement read.

“Among the obliterated tombstones was one containing the bust of the Right Reverend Samuel Gobat, the second Protestant Bishop in Jerusalem and founder of the adjoining Jerusalem University College, formally known as the Gobat School. Three Commonwealth graves of Palestinian police officers were among those destroyed. Many stone crosses were also the targets of the vandals, clearly indicating that these criminal acts were motivated by religious bigotry and hatred against Christians,” it added.

Archbishop Naoum condemned “these wanton acts of desecration” and called “for the relevant authorities to search for, apprehend, and prosecute the perpetrators of these terroristic crimes to the fullest extent of the law, including those laws pertaining to hate crimes.”

He invited “other political and religious leaders both in Jerusalem and around the world to join in condemning and combatting these and other such violent acts of defilement against sacred sites, thereby helping to promote an environment of safety, mutual respect, and religious tolerance in this Holy City that is held in reverence by all three of the Abrahamic Faiths.”

Meanwhile, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member and Head of the Higher Presidential Committee of Churches Affairs, Ramzi Khoury, said that this racist and extremist assault forms a part of the ongoing desecration by Israeli occupation authorities and settlers of the holy sites in Jerusalem and is the natural outcome of Israeli fascist Israeli governments, which provide a cover for impunity for the perpetrators.

In the meantime, the British Consulate-General in Jerusalem expressed its dismay over this attack.

“The UK is dismayed at the attack on the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion. This is the latest in a string of attacks against Christians and their property in and around the Old City,” it tweeted.

The Consulate-General called for holding the perpetrators of religiously motivated attacks accountable.
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Jewish Settler Teens Indicted for Vandalizing Christian Graves

The two teens were arrested last week after video footage showing vandals breaking into the site and desecrating over 30 Protestant graves in Jerusalem

by Yael Freidson
Jan 16, 2023 4:30 pm IST

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed indictments against two Jewish teens on Monday after they broke into the Protestant Christian cemetery on Mount Zion and desecrated more than 30 graves in early January.

The two indicted were 18-years-old Daniel Piro and a 15-year-old minor, residents from the West Bank settlement of Hashmonaim and the central Israeli town of Even Yehuda, respectively.

According to the indictment, the defendants were filmed by security cameras as they broke into the graveyard at about 3:20 P.M., and broke crosses, toppled headstones, destroyed iconography and threw debris over the cemetery walls. They threw parts of marble crosses at headstones and destroyed graves.

The defendants have been charged with entering a place of worship or burial without permission, causing particular damage under aggravating circumstances and insulting religion.

The prosecution requested that the court extend the defendants’ house arrest until the end of the legal proceedings.

The cemetery was established in 1848 and is maintained by the local Lutheran and Anglican communities. Among the graves vandalized were three of British police officers from the British Mandate period and others of the Protestant community, including Bishop Samuel Gobat, the second Protestant bishop of Jerusalem – who purchased the land for the cemetery – and died in 1879.

The cemetery has been vandalized a number of times in the past, and in recent years Christian clergy in the area have suffered from abuse on the part of religious and Haredi Jews. Recently, two Givati infantry brigade soldiers were questioned on suspicions they spit at a procession of Armenian priests in the Old City of Jerusalem.

“We are worried,” said a member of the Protestant community who asked not to be identified by name. “This comes after priests were spat at. There was a case of an attack in the Old City; as a community we are very worried. Our feeling is that they are trying to minimize these incidents, and it does not receive political attention,” he said.

“These things are heating up. Every few years, they desecrate the cemetery. Our hope is that the police and political system will take this incident seriously and do everything they can to protect the communities, with their religious heritage in the city. We want to be optimistic that the authorities will provide us with support,” he added.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned “the act of vandalism at the [Protestant] church” in a tweet last Tuesday. “This act is neither religious nor ethical, and its perpetrators must be brought to justice. The State of Israel has guaranteed since its founding freedom of worship and religion for members of every faith, and will continue to be such a home.”

Tag Meir, an Israeli organization that fights acts of Jewish religious violence, condemned the attack, which it said “joins many ’price tag’ and hate crimes carried out over the years at Dormition Abbey, the Dajani family cemetery and at the seminary connected to the Orthodox church.”

The NGO added, “The Israel Police have established a station at the site, which has not succeeded in avoiding the recurrence of these crimes.”