Israel: Jews help scrub away anti-Christian graffiti made by Jewish settlers

[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: none; border-radius: 0.3846em 0.3846em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Jews scrub away the stain of anti-Christian 'price tag' attack[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: none; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3846em 0.3846em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Rabbi Dov Lipman didn’t plan to spend his morning cleaning anti-Christian graffiti off of the wall of a monastery.

But the American-born Beit Shemesh activist said that it was impossible for him to walk away from the 122 year-old Latrun monastery while it was still bore the marks of the vandalism that took place a day earlier after its door was set on fire and it was defaced with hateful graffiti. The vandalism was suspected to have been a “price tag” attack by right-wing elements angry over the evacuation of Migron.

Lipman had led a six-member group from the community bearing flowers and a message of peace, he recounted:

“When we were just about to leave and workers were cleaning the door of the monastery that was lit on fire, and there was a guy who was scrubbing that said “Jesus was a monkey.” I felt, how could just give them and give flowers and walk away while this terrible thing another Jew did was up there. So I asked if we could help clean it away. At first, the worker cleaning it hesitated, but then he gave me his brush and cleaning solution, and we didn’t walk away until it was removed. I’m glad we did. It was wonderful to be part of the ‘tikkun’ (repair.)”

Such a great article. I encourage you to click on the link and read the whole thing- it's not terribly long. You'd be missing out on some of the reality of the situation which the 4 paragraphs I excerpted can't capture.

As the article makes clear, Rabbi Lipman may be far from a Left-Winger when it comes to his views. But what he is, is an example that common decency is not a political stance, it is a elemental component of all humanity. We may not all agree, but we have to learn to get along and respect one another.

PB