A 40-year-old American tourist was detained on Thursday evening for allegedly vandalizing ancient sculptures inside the Israel Museum’s archaeology wing.
Police were alerted to the museum after reports came in of a visitor intentionally damaging several statues. Images shared by law enforcement depicted two sculptures knocked off pedestals and shattered into multiple fragments. Identified artifacts include the 2nd century CE head of Athena, discovered in 1978 near Beit She’an, and a representation of the Roman god Nemesis as a griffin holding a wheel of fate, dated 210-211 CE, found in 1957 in northern Negev.
Museum officials confirmed the damaged artifacts were “ancient Roman statues from the 2nd century CE” and prominently displayed in the archaeology section.
Before police arrived, a museum security guard detained the man, and authorities later released a photo of a stick, suggesting the individual might have used it during the incident. Subsequent police questioning indicated the man vandalized the statues due to his belief that they are “against the Torah.”
The damaged artifacts are now with the museum’s conservation lab, where experts will attempt restoration. While the museum deemed the event “severe” and “disturbing”, it announced that there would be no disruption to its regular operating hours.
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20 Responses
Why are you calling him a “kanoy”? He just did the mitzvah that everyone else wasn’t doing.
Maybe this person should have asked a shaila from Daas Torah whether he should do it. Maybe he did; we don’t know, but when someone acts on his own like this, I think you can call him a kanoy.
When this gets out to other news agencies and the UN, all of the statues will be known as ancient palestinian artifacts.
This always works out well for us!
Everyone in the museum will do teshuva now and apologize to the chareidim..
The man is a tzadik.
Big tzadik.
No chance this person is acting on daas Torah and no chance he is doing this for the sake of the Torah.
1. It is questionable whether items that were once used for avodah zora are still consider idols. I asked a Dayan specifically about the yin/yang symbol and was told that, as today, it is no more than an image, it is not avodah zorah. I still preferred my kids don’t have, or draw, this, but halachiclly it was not an issue.
2. If the person wants to remove avodah zorah from the world, he should fight against the modern day avodah zoras of money, prestige, honor and how too many “frum” make money dishonestly and taking advantage of others.
3. A “kanoy”? More like a “criminal”. His actions did nothing but cause a terrible chillul hashem.
A modern day Avraham Avinu
Shall Israel now cut off all diplomatic ties with the United States of America over this incident?
Shall Israel deport this Kanoy for life? or imprison him so he has privilege of remaining in Israel?
Not stam a tzaddik; the KING of tzaddikim.
Because if not one gadol throughout the years suggested that these idols be eradicated and this holy Jew came along, he is a tzaddik.
The Shimshon of our generation! Outdoing Pinchas! Bravo! Bravo!
חסיד שוטה
No one has worshipped these things in centuries. They are literally relics in a museum. There is no mitzvah here. We should daven for this fellow to have a refua shelema.
It should bother us. These museums are run by sadducee
Who is the gadol or posek or av beis din who will GO ON THE RECORD to say that this behavior was acceptable and was asked to provide an opinion prior to committing these acts?
NAME THE GADOL.
Otherwise – this is a mental disorder.
He is neither a tzaddik nor the king of tzaddikim.
He is an ENDER TZADIK…..
If I remember correctly, there is no mitzvah to destroy idols that have not been worshiped in many years.
And the statues that were destroyed were probably never idols;
they were probably just statues of people who lived many centuries ago.
The person who did this is an ignorant stupid fool, and what he did is disgraceful.
The Taliban did the same thing.
About the person who destroyed the statues in the museum:
What has he done to fight against idolatrous missionaries that seek to convert Jews?
Probably nothing!!
He asked a shaila and he followed his Posek’s psak.
Suddenly all the people who let their wives and daughters in the streets with almost a miniskirt, and get all bent out of shape when correctly reprimanded, yelling that their “Rabbi” (who they’ll refuse to name) says it’s okay if the skirt “sometimes” goes above the knees, now and here they aren’t dan lkav zchus that this tzadik got a psak and simply did what the Torah says and demands what we all do to Avoda Zora.
the man is a gift and a tzadek, perhaps we should dismantle all the heads in this museum and them put them back….it is the way…to break them….idols need not be in Israel, I am believing now we must even change the aspect of Israel to a KOSHER STATE….period…it is time 216 years till 6000 christianity has failed and Muslim theories as well, idol worshippers, murderers….they should not be in Israel
Why is everyone talking about piskei din and daas torah? What makes anyone think this person was even Jewish? Surely that must be established before there can be any discussion of minutia like whose psak he might have been following!
As for the halacha, it makes no difference how many centuries have passed since an avoda zara was last worshiped. Until a goy specifically nullifies it, it remains an avoda zara and must be destroyed.
Thoughtless Response, your response is completely thoughtless and off topic. Your question about a yin/yang symbol is completely irrelevant. Avoda zara is not a symbol, it is an object. If your kids draw a symbol on a piece of paper, that is obviously not an avoda zara, since they are not worshiping it. But these statues were presumably worshiped.
And “money, prestige, honor” are NOT AT ALL avoda zara, and it is a serious ZIYUF HATORAH to call them avoda zara. Avoda zara is Athena, Baal, Kemosh, Jesus. Things that are literally worshiped as gods. Nobody worships money, prestige, or honor. Money could be avoda zara, only if someone sets aside a specific coin or note and worships it. Then that specific coin or note would be avoda zara. Since neither prestige nor honor are objects, they are incapable of being avoda zara even in principle.
Square Root, neither Athena nor Nemesis were ever people who lived. They were gods, and these were statues of them. It is likely that the statues themselves were worshiped.
But none of this is relevant to the actual story, unless we first establish that the person who did this even cares about halacha.