Spitting in God's eye

(JNS) — Earlier this week, ultra-Orthodox Jews parading through Jerusalem’s Old City passed a group of Christians bearing a large wooden cross. Some of the Jews spat on the ground in the Christians’ direction.

Two days later, Jerusalem police arrested five Jews involved in a similar spitting incident.

The spitters provoked widespread outrage and disgust. They were denounced by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the chief rabbis of Israel and the U.K., and a number of ultra-Orthodox politicians too.

The rabbis and other Orthodox folk were particularly incensed by the claim that spittin...