JERUSALEM — The bruised and grungy woman said she was the Prophet of the Olive Tree. If her branches grew green, Jesus Christ would return to Earth. If they grew black, Satan was on his way.
Police took her to a mental hospital after she started beating tourists who failed to kneel before her outside Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The woman--"probably American and possibly Californian," according to her doctor--suffers from a psychological phenomenon known as the Jerusalem syndrome. Documented for decades, the Jerusalem syndrome is a condition in which visitors to the Holy Land, especially religious pilgrims, are overcome by delusions that they are Jesus or John the Baptist or Moses or the Virgin Mary or any carrier of divine messages. Sometimes they become violent.
Doctors, mental health experts and law enforcement agencies throughout Israel are bracing for a wave of Jerusalem syndrome cases that they fear will be brought on by the religious and spiritual fervor surrounding the coming of the new millennium. Already, there is a slight uptick in the number of cases being treated here, doctors say, and December likely will be a peak month.
For some victims, the syndrome is a temporary condition that lasts no more than a week; for others, it is symptomatic of profound or chronic mental illness. Most believe that they are on a holy mission.
The folkloric scenery of Jerusalem has always included the occasional odd character who wanders the narrow streets of the Old City or the crowded Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, dressed in white robes and spouting off verses from the Bible. This ancient holy city of shrines, stone temples and Crusader fortresses has attracted pilgrims of three faiths--Judaism, Christianity and Islam--for centuries, and a very small number of visitors become overwhelmed, disoriented and out of touch with reality.
"Jerusalem is a magnet," said Dr. Yair Barel, head psychiatrist for the Jerusalem city government and leading expert on the Jerusalem syndrome. "If you are in L.A. and you think you are Napoleon, you don't have a burning desire to go to Paris and start a war. But if you are in L.A. and you think you are Jesus, you definitely have a need to come to Jerusalem."
More than 2 million tourists come to Israel annually, and many more are expected in 2000. On average, said Barel, about 150 people exhibit some form of the Jerusalem syndrome each year, but only about 40 require hospitalization.
