Violence Ramps Up Against Israel’s Archaeological Sites

Vandals spray-painted graffiti on the walls of the fourth-century C.E. synagogue at Hammath Tiberias in May and severely damaged its famous mosaic floor. Such acts of vandalism have occurred several times in Israel recently. And the suspects are always the same: members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community known as haredim. The chief rabbinate of Israel has condemned the vandalism. For years haredi demonstrations have disrupted legal excavations, ostensibly to protest the desecration of Jewish burials. It is archaeological policy in Israel to treat the discovery of human remains respectfullya and to carefully rebury them elsewhere after excavation. Nonetheless some […]