The monks of the Dormition are often under attack. In late December, the inscription “Christian missionaries are worse than Hamas” appeared on the wall of the Orthodox cemetery in front of the abbey. Frequently, during the night, the monastery is targeted with stones.
“I have no hate,” Schnabel said. “I prayed for the two guys who harassed me as I always pray for the perpetrators. This is the DNA of my being as a Christian.”
The two perpetrators have been sentenced to house arrest.
The Benedictine said he wonders “what’s wrong with these people, that they cannot accept that Jerusalem is a multicultural, multireligious, multiethnic city, holy for all Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike? What are they taught in their yeshivot (religious schools), in their synagogues? I think there’s a lack of good religious education,” he said.
“I ask the Israeli government and religious leaders in Israel who are really aware of this phenomenon,” Schnabel said. “As a Christian, I’m very aware of the rising problem of antisemitism and I really ask that also in Israel it would be accepted and recognized that there’s a problem which is called Christian hate from the Jewish side.”
