Israeli police have arrested an American tourist at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after he hurled artistic endeavors to the ground, defacing two second-century Roman statues.
The vandalism on late Thursday raised questions concerning the security of Israel’s priceless collections and stirred concern a couple of rise in assaults on cultural heritage in Jerusalem.
Police recognized the suspect as a radical 40-year-old Jewish American tourist and stated preliminary questioning urged he smashed the statues as a result of he thought-about them “to be idolatrous and opposite to the Torah.”
The man’s lawyer, Nick Kaufman, denied that he had acted out of non secular fanaticism.
Instead, Kaufman stated, the tourist was affected by a psychological dysfunction that psychiatrists have labeled the Jerusalem syndrome. The situation – a type of disorientation believed to be induced by the spiritual magnetism of the town, which is sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims – is stated to trigger overseas pilgrims to consider they’re figures from the Bible.
The defendant has been ordered to endure a psychiatric analysis. Officials didn’t launch his title attributable to a gag order.
With spiritual passions burning and tensions simmering in the course of the Jewish vacation season, spitting and different assaults on Christian worshippers by radical ultra-Orthodox Jews have been on the rise, unnerving vacationers, outraging native Christians and sparking widespread condemnation. The Jewish vacation of Sukkot, the harvest competition, ends Friday at sunset.
The distinguished Israel Museum, with its displays of archaeology, advantageous arts, and Jewish artwork and life, described Thursday’s vandalism as a “troubling and strange occasion,” and stated it “condemns all types of violence and hopes such incidents won’t recur.”
Museum images confirmed the marble head of the goddess Athena knocked off its pedestal onto the ground and a statue of a pagan deity shattered into fragments. The broken statues had been being restored, museum workers stated. The museum declined to supply the worth of the statues or value of destruction.
The Israeli authorities expressed alarm over the defacement, which officers additionally attributed to Jewish iconoclasm in obedience to early prohibitions in opposition to idolatry.
“This is a stunning case of the destruction of cultural values,” stated Eli Escusido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “We see with concern the truth that cultural values are being destroyed by religiously motivated extremists.”
The vandalism gave the impression to be the most recent in a spate of assaults by Jews in opposition to historic objects in Jerusalem. In February, a Jewish American tourist broken a statue of Jesus at a Christian pilgrimage website within the Old City, and in January, Jewish youngsters defaced historic Christian tombstones at a distinguished Jerusalem cemetery.
On Friday morning, about 16 hours after the defacement at the museum, the doorways opened to the general public at the frequently scheduled time. – AP
