Israeli police on Sunday arrested eight members of the Denver-based cult Concerned Christians, who were believed to be planning acts of violence. But the Israeli police don't believe this is the last Doomsday cult they're going to see in the city this year -- in fact, they've created a special unit to deal with Millennium-related malfeasance. The psychiatric authorities too are expecting their own Y2K deluge -- they're anticipating a sharp increase in the "Jerusalem Syndrome," in which around 50 tourists a year are seized by the delusion that they're a reincarnated Biblical figure. The odd Solomon or Job won't cause much alarm, but there are also an awful lot of warriors in the Good Book.
Jerusalem's Millennium Bug
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Who'd want to be a Jerusalem cop? As if the tinderbox of Jews and Palestinians living cheek-by-jowl in a city sacred to both isn't volatile enough, Millennial fever is bringing to town all manner of Christian fundamentalist whackos in search of apocalypse. "The major concern of the police is that some of these groups believe they need to create Armageddon in order to bring back Christ," says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. "They plan to do that by destroying Muslim holy sites in order to provoke a war."