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Jewish man who attacked Jerusalem nun sent to psychiatric hospital
Israel’s Christian envoy points to Muslim church attacker also cleared on mental health grounds as he rejects ‘cover-up’ claims
A Jewish man who violently attacked a Catholic nun in Jerusalem has been acquitted on mental health grounds and ordered to spend up to six years in a psychiatric hospital.
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court found there was evidence that Yona Schreiber carried out the April assault but accepted the district psychiatrist’s finding that he was psychotic at the time and therefore not criminally responsible.
The 48-year-old nun was attacked while walking on Mount Zion, close to the Cenacle, a site holy to Christians and Jews.
She was pushed to the ground before her attacker returned and repeatedly kicked her, leaving her with severe bruising.
Israel’s special envoy to the Christian world, George Deek, has now rejected suggestions that the ruling amounted to a “cover-up” of anti-Christian violence, pointing to a recent case involving a Muslim man accused of desecrating a Catholic church in Israel.
Writing on X, Deek said: “Just last week, a Muslim man smashed statues and crosses inside St. Anthony’s Catholic church in Jaffa. He too was found to be mentally ill and released without even facing trial.
“Did anyone conclude that Israel was ‘covering up’ anti-Christian violence because the perpetrator happened to be Muslim? Of course not.”
Deek also pointed to cases in France, Spain, Britain and the United States where people responsible for serious attacks were found not criminally responsible because of psychiatric illness.
“The Jerusalem court did not deny that the nun was attacked,” he said. “It found that the attacker committed the acts and, on the basis of the district psychiatrist’s professional assessment, that he was psychotic and legally incapable of criminal responsibility. He was ordered hospitalised for up to six years.”
Deek acknowledged concerns over attacks on Christians in Israel, saying: “There are genuine incidents against Christians in Israel. I condemn them without hesitation.”
But he criticised attempts to use individual attacks to make a wider case against Israeli society.
“Christians deserve better than to have their suffering selectively harvested for someone else’s anti-Israel narrative,” he said.
Friar Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, where the nun is a researcher, expressed disappointment that the attacker would not face a criminal penalty.
“At the moment of the incident, his judgment was nevertheless sufficient for him to deliberately choose a Catholic nun as his victim from among all the people present,” he told the Associated Press.
Poquillon said he hoped the psychiatric hospitalisation would be carried out in full “so that public safety can be assured, our colleague can recover psychologically, and people can live in and visit Jerusalem without fear, regardless of their belonging to any community”.
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also condemned the attack while stressing that the man had not simply walked free.
“(The) attack on the nun was despicable and condemned universally by all levels of Israeli government and society,” he wrote on X.
“(The) attacker was acquitted of criminal charges because he was found to be mentally ill and ordered up to six years in a mental hospital. He didn’t get away with it.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the assault at the time as a “shameful act” and said the country remained committed “to safeguarding the freedom of religion and freedom of worship for all faiths”.
The case comes amid wider concern over harassment of Christians in Jerusalem, including reports of verbal abuse and spitting.
Deek said earlier this month that Israeli police had appointed an English-speaking officer to act as a first point of contact for Christians reporting incidents.
“We are going to come up with practical solutions to how we can minimise or stop, if possible, the phenomenon,” he said. “We take these issues very seriously.”
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