Violence Ramps Up Against Israel’s Archaeological Sites

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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 respectfully^a and to carefully rebury them elsewhere after excavation. Nonetheless some haredim often respond with destruction as they recently did at Hammath Tiberias—even though the synagogue had been excavated in the 1960s. Many of the mosaic tesserae were hacked up, including the panel depicting the Torah ark and menorahs. Mosaic Greek inscriptions were covered with spray paint, and graffiti sprayed on the walls. One read, “To Shuka the cannibal.” referring to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) director Shuka Dorfman. Another said, “for every tomb a[n archaeological] site, [there will be a] reaction for years [to come],” promising continued retribution.

According to Shaul Goldstein, director of Israel’s National Parks, reconstruction will cost “millions of shekels” and will take many years.

The news from Hammath Tiberias came less than a week after the discovery of a vandalized 1,300-year-old pottery factory furnace near Tel Yavneh. The wall of the ancient furnace—among the world’s largest—was spray-painted with Hebrew graffiti that asked, “What is more important—the furnace or respecting the dead?”

Just a month before that, a Byzantine mosaic from 563 C.E. was destroyed at Khirbet Hanut in the Valley of Elah. This time the accompanying graffiti spray-painted on the walls read, “The magnitude of destruction equals the magnitude of desecration.”

In early 2011 a magnificent mosaic was discovered and then destroyed at Horvat Midras.^b Several other archaeological sites were targets of vandalism last year following confrontations with haredim.

Although the attacks seem to be growing more frequent, they are nothing new. Harvard professor Lawrence Stager faced haredi opposition at Ashkelon in 1998, and things nearly turned violent until Stager was able to show that the Bronze Age burials he was excavating were much earlier than any possibly Jewish grave.^c And in the early 011 1980s, husband-and-wife team Eric and Carol Meyers excavated an ancient synagogue at Nabratein with a team that included non-Jews and women wearing shorts and tank tops. The haredim protested by knocking over columns in the synagogue, breaking down excavation balks and destroying equipment. Volunteers were enlisted to stand as armed guards at the site until the archaeological team completed its work and took the finds to safekeeping.

The IAA and National Parks Authority have promised to do everything possible to bring the vandals to justice and restore the sites as much as possible. In the meantime, the cultural, historical and financial costs continue to mount.

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 […]