Photo Credit: Google Maps

On Shabbat, June 8, the eve of Shavuot, 60 students of the Armenian Church attacked two young Jews who were walking on the Armenian Patriarchate Street in the Old City of Jerusalem and severely beat them until they needed urgent medical treatment.

According to Honenu attorney Chaim Bleicher, representing the victims, the vicious beatings continued “until the priests who led the students began to instruct them to stop the lynching.”




Education is nothing if not setting limits.

Attorney Bleicher sent a letter to Police Investigations and Intelligence Division urging the completion of the investigation of his clients’ case, and described the attack:

“While my clients were walking on the sidewalk, the group of Armenians approached them and began to attack them with murderous blows. My clients were punched in their faces and kicked all over their bodies while they were lying on the floor. […] One of the youths was thrown in the air on his back and when he lay helpless on the ground many Armenians stood over him and continued to beat him. The brutal assault lasted a few minutes, until the priests who led the students began to instruct them to stop the lynching.”

Again, one cannot stress enough the value of good teaching.

“My clients escaped wounded and bleeding to the nearby police station in Qishla,” Bleicher wrote on. “My clients needed medical treatment and one of them was taken by ambulance to Shaare Zedek Hospital.”

According to Bleicher, the youths filed a complaint at the David police station, but have not yet received any information regarding the arrest of suspects and the development of the investigation.

“It goes without saying that the incident took place in an area covered by police cameras, which certainly should enable the rapid arrest of the attackers and the obtaining of evidence against them,” Bleicher pointed out, and asked the district commander to “arrest and interrogate anyone who appears to be one of the attackers, or that there is information that he attacked my clients.”

He, too, asked to be updated on progress in the case.