Extremist Jews Vandalize Israeli Catholic Convent in Price Tag Outrage

Image by getty images

By JTA April 1, 2014

A Catholic monastery near Beit Shemesh was vandalized with anti-American and anti-Christian epithets.

“America is Nazi Germany” and “Price Tag — Peace Agreement,” as well as “Jesus is a monkey” and “Mary is a cow,” were spray painted on the walls of the monastery. The tires of four vehicles also were slashed.

The monastery is located in Deir a-Rafat village located close to Kibbutz Tzora near Beit Shemesh.

The vandalism was discovered by monks on Tuesday morning; Jerusalem police are investigating.

Price tag refers to the strategy adopted by extremist settlers and their supporters generally to exact retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions or Palestinian attacks on Jews.

Other monasteries in the area have been victims of suspected price tag attacks in the past.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO