– Yahav Zohar – September 2nd, 2025 –
Did you hear about the graffiti sprayed on the Western Wall? It made the news in a small way
almost a month ago. Some outlets even showed the photo, Hebrew letters on the ancient
stones יש שואה בעזה “There is a shoa (holocaust) in Gaza”. Earlier that evening, the same
young man had written the same words on the wall of the Great Synagogue in West
Jerusalem. Soon after, he was arrested and brought before a judge. The police demanded he
be held in custody, but the lawyer hired by his family argued that he was mentally unwell.
The judge took pity, pronounced the case ‘sad’, and sent him for a psych evaluation.

Screenshot from Israeli public television. The anointment stone.

He was sent to Deir Yassin, Jerusalem’s mental hospital built on the site of the most infamous
massacre of the Nakba. Some of the clinics and rec rooms are actually in the fine old stone
houses, where the people of Deir Yassin lived for centuries, and where they were gruesomely
murdered in April of 1948. Seems to me the people who thought to treat the mentally ill here
are madder than any of them. He was held there for several days and released.

Last Monday, late at night, he struck again, this time in the holiest place to Christianity. On
the anointment stone, where Jesus’ body was laid out between the crucifixion and the burial,
at the entrance of the Holy Sepulcher Church. Again, the same Hebrew words on the holy
stone “There’s a Holocaust in Gaza”. He was caught just outside the church, still carrying the
paint, arrested, and brought in for interrogation.

Later, the police released some of the transcript:
Q: Why did you do it there?
‘Because it’s the holiest place I could think of. I wanted to draw international attention. I don’t
know if it will help, but I tried.’
Q: What do you mean by shoa?
‘Children in Gaza are starving, a population is being intentionally starved, and this constitutes
a holocaust.’
Q: Why do you do this?
‘I need the word Shoa, Holocaust, to enter the Israeli and international discourse.’
Q: Who is perpetrating this holocaust?
‘Hamas and the IDF together, like they collaborated on October 7 th , treason.’
In his previous interrogation, after writing on the western wall he said:
‘I tried to think how I can communicate the holocaust in Gaza to the public, so I went to the
Western Wall and sprayed.’
Q: But why vandalise holy places?
‘To awaken Jewish honor and disrespect Jewish tradition.’
Q: What is that to do with your claim that there is a holocaust in Gaza
‘It dishonors me that Jews are behaving this way.’
Q: Don’t you think you could express the same thing differently?
‘I have no patience, I want my actions to have a big effect.’

Jerusalem of the Hebrew bible was a city of kings and prophets. The prophets, despite what
the word has come to mean, were not primarily concerned with predicting the future. Isaiah,

Jeremiah, and the like preached in the streets and in the courts of kings, calling out injustice.
For this, they were beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes killed. Jesus was steeped in this
tradition. It is he who called Jerusalem “the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to
her”.

Soon after Jesus was executed for the same crimes, the city itself was destroyed. The Roman
army ‘ploughed it flat like a field’ as very few cities have been destroyed until recently. Once
that happened, the rabbis said, ‘prophecy was given to madmen’. That is, the prophecy is the
same, except today, instead of executing prophets or throwing them in pits, we call them mad
and commit them to padded rooms.

After he was arrested for the second time, the mental hospital didn’t want him. Eventually, the
judge ruled that he be released on condition that he stay out of Jerusalem for 30 days. Will
this keep him away? Will someone else take up the mantle of writing on our walls?
As for myself, I am not mad enough to be a prophet, perhaps not concise enough. If I did
write on the stones people are kissing and bowing down to, I’d probably try to appeal to them
by going biblical. The whole of Isaiah chapter 1 is appropriate, but if there wasn’t room, just
this:
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

All of Jeremiah chapter 7 would be good, as it is about how the holiness of Jerusalem will
not protect evil doers, but if I had to choose, perhaps this:
  Do not trust in deceptive words and say,
“This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!”
If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 
if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed
innocent blood ….then I will let you live in this place.

But I have no wish to get arrested, no time for Deir Yassin, so for now, I’m just
writing on this virtual wall.

Yahav Zohar is a Senior Partner and tour guide with the Green Olive Collective