An American tourist was arrested in Israel on Thursday after destroying two 1,800-year-old statues in the Archaeology Wing of Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. The vandal, a 40-year-old American Jewish man, reportedly claimed that the Roman totems were an idolatrous violation of the Jewish faith, leading to an outburst of what psychiatrists call “Jerusalem Syndrome.”
First diagnosed in 1930, “Jerusalem Syndrome” is an overarching psychiatric term for religiously based obsessive behavior or psychosis triggered in otherwise healthy people following a visit to the Holy City. The condition usually takes the form of intense religious excitement that convinces the individual that they are a figure from various religious scriptures. Jerusalem Syndrome is not formally recognized as a mental disorder—or even a real medical phenomenon—by most diagnostic manuals, but it has been observed in Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike for nearly a century.
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According to the Israel Museum, which displays artifacts and works of art from Jewish history, two Roman statues dating back to the Second Century were deliberately smashed by a museum guest. One statue was a marble bust of the Greek goddess Athena discovered in northern Israel in 1978. The other was a statue of a griffin (a cross between an eagle and a lion) holding the Wheel of Fate associated with the Roman goddess Nemesis. Both carvings were pushed off their pedestals and broken into several pieces.
“In a severe incident this afternoon, a tourist from the US intentionally caused damage to two ancient Roman statues from the second century CE,” said a statement from a museum spokesperson. “The museum’s staff alerted the police, which is handling the matter. The damaged statues have been moved to the museum’s conservation lab for professional restoration. The museum’s management, which views this as a troubling and unusual event, condemns all forms of violence and hopes such incidents will not recur.”
Museum security guards detained the vandal, an American Jewish man whose name has been withheld via a gag order. Police questioning revealed that the man’s religious convictions had driven him to destroy the statues, which he reportedly called “idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.”
However, the man’s attorney, Nick Kaufman, denied that this was an act of religious fanaticism and instead cited “Jerusalem Syndrome” as a contributing factor. Kaufman’s client has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric analysis as the museum takes steps to secure its priceless artifacts.
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This latest act of vandalism comes as simmering religious tensions in the historically volatile city raise concerns about attacks on cultural heritage in Jerusalem.
As the Jewish festival of Sukkot winds to a close on Friday, religiously motivated assaults on Christian worshippers by Orthodox Jews have been on the rise. On Tuesday, several Jews were arrested by Israeli police for spitting on foreign Christian worshippers in the street. The display provoked outrage in the Israeli Christian community and drew a rare statement of condemnation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A similar episode on Wednesday saw a crowd of people spitting on the ancient Church of Flagellation, believed to have been built at the site of Christ’s whipping prior to his execution. In February, an American Jewish man entered this same church and used a hammer to smash the face of a statue of Christ.
Last month, a video circulated on social media showing a group of Orthodox children harassing, threatening, and spitting on a group of Christians proselytizing with a loudspeaker in the Jewish Quarter of the city on the Sabbath. Street evangelism is not illegal in Israel, but ultra-Orthodox groups have made various efforts to make it so.
Christian women are spat on, kicked, whipped, verbally abused and have their dress dragged for talking about Jesus in Israel. pic.twitter.com/ELi4a5rAIL
— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) September 12, 2023
In January, two Jewish teens caused nearly $100,000 in damages to a historic Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion. The graveyard, which is the resting place of Oskar Schindler and hymnist Horatio Spafford, suffered shattered headstones and desecrated crosses reminiscent of a previous vandalism in 2013. Local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities funded the restoration effort after both incidents.
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