Tverya – City Uproots Trees to Make Street Kosher for Kohanim

Tverya – The Tiberias Municipality has been transplanting trees along Hayarden Street in order to enable cohanim, descendants of ancient Jewish priests, to use the street.

According to Jewish tradition, cohanim are not allowed to enter cemeteries.

Yisrael Antebi the municipality’s assistant director general and the head of the city engineering and projects department, described the plan for a thoroughfare for cohanim, explaining that the city was more than 2,000 years old and the Old City of Tiberias was flanked by cemeteries. “As a result, cohanim are not prepared to use the traffic thoroughfares in Tiberias in the center of the city. The Israeli government decided to fund roads that conform with halakha [Jewish religious law] to make it possible for cohanim to travel there,” Antebi wrote.

The project requires excavation of the entire width of the road, removal of trees along its perimeter as well as underground infrastructure, and construction of installations in conformity with Jewish religious law. Halaka requires that two layers of concrete be installed under the street. The project will create a hollow cavity from which a pipe will run so the area is not sealed. Two similar projects have been completed elsewhere in the town.

The controversy over cemeteries in Tiberias is as old as the town itself. The city was founded in 20 C.E. by Herod Antipas, but the Jews refused to live there because it was partially built on a cemetery. Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai later gave halakhic approval for Jews to make their homes there.