Jerusalem – A wildfire tore through a forest on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Sunday, moving within several hundred yards (meters) of Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and sending a huge plume of smoke billowing over parts of the holy city.
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Fire service spokesman Boaz Rakia said the memorial, Yad Vashem, was not in any danger. Fire officials said they were making progress but the blaze was not under control by Sunday evening. They did not know what caused it, although weather in the area has been hot and dry.
Estee Yaari, a spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, said the 45-acre (18 hectare) campus was evacuated as the blaze approached. Police said the fire was a few hundred yards (meters) from the memorial.
“Everybody was evacuated calmly,” Yaari said. “There was a lot of smoke on campus.”
Two people required medical treatment, she added.
Yad Vashem is one of Israel’s national treasures, home to a museum and memorials for the victims of the Holocaust. Foreign dignitaries routinely stop at Yad Vashem when visiting the country.
The memorial holds some 140 million pages of Holocaust documentation, the world’s largest such collection. It also exhibits artifacts, such as shoes, photographs, suitcases and recorded testimonies of Holocaust victims and survivors.
It also has an eternal flame in its “Hall of Remembrance,” as well as the “Hall of Names,” where it is collecting the identities of the 6 million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their sympathizers during World War II.
The fire broke out Sunday in the Jerusalem Forest, a patch of hilly terrain covered by pine trees on the western edge of the city.
The blaze brought back memories of a devastating fire that killed 42 people last December in a forest in northern Israel. Most of the victims were prison guards who were helping in the rescue efforts. Their bus was engulfed in flames, killing them.
That fire burned out of control for four days and was extinguished only after firefighting aircraft from as far away as the U.S. came in to bring it under control.
After that disaster, Israel overhauled its firefighting service and bought firefighting aircraft. Some of them could be seen circling over the Jerusalem fire.
Not again!!!
Like it states in the gemorah,a fire happens only in a place where there is chilul shabbos. How many more rallies are needed to close yerushalayim on shabbos.
how much more signs do klal yisroel need to do TSHIVEH ….. ITS IN OOOUUURRRR HANDS TO STOP TRAGEDIES ……. PLEASE THINK ABOUT IT …..
Why are these Bachurim wearing black felt hats during the broiling days of summer in Eretz Yisrael? Why not wear a yarmulke? I can understand if they’re davening or bentching. But to robotically wear a hat outdoors, you must be meshugah.
To Nos. 2 and 3….for such hateful comments at a time when klal yisroel is in desparate need of chizuk, we should only hope that these flames devour your words and everything you hold dear.
A better question would be why are they skipping afternoon or evening seder to watch trees burning?
They’re wearing felt hats because that’s the litvish yeshiva minhag in eretz yisrael.
If u don’t like it, don’t attend those yeshivos or send your kids there.
They’re wearing them outside, again, because it’s the custom. Plus, at their age, they usually daven shacharis and mincha in yeshiva and maariv at home, so they need to wear them home.
You can see they’re carrying bags, so very likely on the way home AFTER second Seder, not cutting Seder.
The fact that you felt the need to bash them in such a non-relevant setting points to how pathetic and unsatisfying your own lives must be.
Like rashi says in bechukosai:”first you stop learning Torah, then u come to hate it and talmidei chachamim”.
Maybe improve your own Limud hatorah and u won’t hate bnei Torah so much.
This is terrable such I beutiful forest the way that yad V’shem is built you walk trough a long tunnel like museum where u expiriance the horrors of the holocaust and the light at the end of the tunnel is a balcony which looks out over the forest and serves as nachuma and stands for the future.