An American tourist is arrested for smashing ancient Roman statues at a museum in Israel

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By ISABEL DEBRE
Updated 10:46 AM CDT, October 6, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police have arrested an American tourist at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after he hurled works of art to the floor, defacing two second-century Roman statues.

The vandalism late Thursday raised questions about the safety of Israel’s priceless collections and stirred concern about a rise in attacks on cultural heritage in Jerusalem.

Police identified the suspect as a radical 40-year-old Jewish American tourist and said initial questioning suggested he smashed the statues because he considered them “to be idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.”

The man’s lawyer, Nick Kaufman, denied that he had acted out of religious fanaticism.




Read more: Link to source

[ZonkerHarris]

1. lock him up

[elleng]

14. YES.

[mahina]

2. Horrendous

💧

[The Unmitigated Gall]

3. *sigh* nt

[C Moon]

4. Okay Mr. Lawyer, than what was the reason?

Hopefully there's video/audio of him.

[maxsolomon]

5. See it's not "fanatacism", it's just simple concern

that 2000 year old sculptures made by pagans would offend g-d.

[PlutosHeart]

6. Lock him up for a life time.

So sick.

[homegirl]

25. TWENTY YEARS

Hard Labor breaking boulders.

[Aristus]

7. "Idolatrous", huh?

I'm willing to bet it says somewhere in the Torah and/or the Talmud to not act like a dick, too. Did he read those parts?

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

35. Kinda hard to find those parts

When so much of it is about who to enslave, selling daughters into sex slavery, how to force women to marry their rapists, when to kill a rapist--and his victim, murdering disobedient children, murdering witches, murdering homosexuals, child rape, mass murder, genocide...

There's more awful to be had, but that's the short list.

[jeffreyi]

39. To say nothing of war after war after war.

[3auld6phart]

8. Damn.

Bull shit, mr feckin’ lawyerman. That really sounds like on of you gawd fearing fundamentalist ignorent so called, fecking christians. Jail the SOB.
,

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

37. Fundamentalists are fundamentalists

Every religion has them, and they're all dangerous.

About 20 years ago, a fundie christian did the exact same thing at San Antonio's cathedral. The art wasn't as old, but still the same thing done: smashing statues/art works and getting all bent out of shape about "idolatry."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/01/28/cathedrals-damaged-statues-leave-gaping-hole/569da555-d8d7-4c1a-a955-44ad8a0deaa7/

Since people are always in there during the day as tourists or to do what Catholics do in there, they were lucky not to have a body count, too.

[hatrack]

9. Fuck this guy, fuck the voices in his head, fuck his two-bit deity . . .

[LymphocyteLover]

11. Seriously

[LymphocyteLover]

10. OMFG, religion will be the death of us....

[hatrack]

17. What are the differences between this and "God told me to kill you"?

Last edited Sat Oct 7, 2023, 09:02 AM - Edit history (1)

Degree of violence and choice of targets. Nothing more.

[LymphocyteLover]

31. True

[Warpy]

12. Religious fanatics universally suck

I hope the statues can be repaired and I hope he doesn't enjoy his stay in an Israeli prison. Stupid fucker.

[Sky Jewels]

13. Ahh, more insanity inspired by stupid fairy tales.

Religion is a cancer on the planet.

[LiberalFighter]

15. Lock him up for life in Israel.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. No different than the destruction of historical/religious artifacts by ISIS

in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_the_Islamic_State#:~:text=Deliberate%20destruction%20and%20theft%20of,control%20and%20ancient%20historical%20artifacts.

[Pinback]

29. First thing I thought of.

Moronic.

[AllaN01Bear]

18. hem. lock him up.

who does the sam hecktoroni is he.? no excuse and money can not replace them.

[Eugene]

19. AP link

https://apnews.com/article/israel-museum-roman-statues-damaged-tourist-arrested-c1f793f1df00d477adac3e651e5751a7

[dalton99a]

30. +1

The vandalism appeared to be the latest in a spate of attacks by Jews against historical objects in Jerusalem. In February, a Jewish American tourist damaged a statue of Jesus at a Christian pilgrimage site in the Old City, and in January, Jewish teenagers defaced historical Christian tombstones at a prominent Jerusalem cemetery.

[paleotn]

20. What have the Romans ever done for us?

Religion strikes again.

[Evolve Dammit]

21. "Ugly American" derived and amplified by inexcusable shit like this. Lock him up.

[Demovictory9]

22. Keep him in jail over there

[Stardust Mirror]

23. I guess he needs to repay the value

or if he can't afford it, his Bible condones debt slavery

[keithbvadu2]

24. Good one!

[Rhiannon12866]

26. Why???

[Wonder Why]

27. I didn't know Donnie was allowed out of the country.

[Snackshack]

28. Religion is

…a sick psychosis that people voluntarily submit themselves to, willingly follow and thru that process convince themselves that actions they would deem insane & offensive by others as just fine for them to do.

If the planet is not already on course to a double digit increase in temperature once temperature catches up to the current number of 419ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, temperature lags. If that happens religion will no longer matter, nothing will matter any longer, if that does not happen and our species survives another 10-20-50-100 generations we will eventually outgrow this need for this not to be all there is. It was not too long ago we were burning epilepsy victims at the stake because we thought them witches or had an Inquisition.

We do make progress albeit painfully slow.

[jeffreyi]

40. Hey, we have dominion.

We are better. We win.

[ShazzieB]

32. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" is one of the ten commandments.

But I'm not familiar with any commandment that says "Thou shalt smash up graven images made by others." That's a new one on me.

[intheflow]

33. The no graven image passage doesn't prohibit art.

It’s about not creating something and worshipping it as you would God. You can make stuff, but the commandment serves to remind that neither you nor your creation are gods. (“You” in this case being generic, not you specifically.)

[ShazzieB]

36. I know.

Believe me, I do. I was joking, or trying to.

[cab67]

41. If this was a huse of whorship, he might have had a point.

But it's not.

[robbob]

46. I think your spellcheck is broken...

You forgot the “e” in “whorship”.

😂

[cab67]

47. my bad.

[Behind the Aegis]

34. What a fucking asshole.

I hope Nemesis handles this, and, if not, then let the non-god types hand his ass to him.

[JohnSJ]

38. WTF. Sounds like religious fanaticism to me.

[LisaM]

43. It's called Jerusalem syndrome.

It's similar to Stendahl syndrome and a few other related syndromes where the person is so overwhelmed by whatever it is that they cannot act in a rational way.

[republianmushroom]

42. Let this A-O rot in prison.

[dai13sy]

44. He's a total moron

Lock him up and throw away the key and block him forever from ever being near any of Israel's treasures. I wouldn't let him back in the country. He's shown total disrespect and hatred for Israel.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

45. Religion is the greatest perpetrator of hate in the history of the world.