Ashkelon, Israel – The director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabai, announced Thursday that he was considering a plan to build a new emergency room at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center underground, instead of rebuilding it in its current location.
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Two months ago a graveyard was discovered under the site on which the ER is built. Once the grave site was found at the original construction site, the Antiquities Authority confirmed the graves belonged to Jews, and put the planned project on indefinite hold.
Following the discovery, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to relocate the ER and was severely criticized by many government officials and medical personnel. Some critics accused Netanyahu of acquiescing to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox community, which was adamant about not building over the graveyard. The cost of moving the building site of the emergency room is estimated at NIS 160 million.
Dr. Eitan Chai-Am, director general of Israel’s Health Ministry, announced his resignation over the planned relocation.
The outcry over the planned relocation prompted Netanyahu to retract his original decision to relocate, and the emergency room was set to be rebuilt at its current location.
However, MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) has recently promoted a new idea to rebuild the controversial ER underneath the alleged ancient Jewish graves.
According to a rabbi with the Zaka emergency service organization, Gafni’s suggestion is “serious.” Several Rabbis reviewed Gafni’s plan and presented Gabai of the Prime Minister’s Office with architectural blueprints for the underground ER, prepared for them by an architect. They said that the plan was beneficial as it would circumvent the uprooting of Jewish graves.
Zaka’s rabbi, along with rabbi Arie Dvir, said that the plan to build the emergency room underground would be cheaper than building an above ground emergency room and reinforcing it against rocket attacks – as the original plan dictates.
The Prime Minister’s Office said in response that they have reviewed the plan and will announce a decision within the coming days.
The graveyard was discovered when deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman attempted to add a new wing to the hospital.
The Finance Ministry said the high cost of moving the building site would be funded either with money designated for reinforcing other hospital departments against rockets, or by siphoning money from various other government offices.
I know they were complaining that if they wouldn’t disturb the shoichnai afar it would take to long to build the much-needed ER. Well with this new plan submitted by Gafni to build underneath the graves I’m sure it will take superfast since they will be working the “graveyard shift”!
The Dept. of Antiquities confirmed that the graves were those of non-Jewish Byzantines. Not only is there no proof whatever that they were Jews, there is undisputed proof that these graves were those of non Jews that inhabited the land at that time.
Keep in mind that the land has been inhabited continuously since prehistory, so there are human bones all over the place, and developments go up all over the place, all the time. The reason that certain elements within the ISraeli power structure were against the construction was because there were backroom, Tammany Hall style deals in the works between leaders of certain vocal minorities in Israel, who act as power brokers and the local governments.
For those of us who want to do what is said in the Torah, we follow Hashem’s directive “tzedek tzedek tirdof”, ‘chase after righteousness’, meaning stay far away from corruption. Corruption is always bad, but when certain leaders use the Torah as a means of gaining power and being corrupt, this is a sin not only against God and man, but a sin against nature as well, since the Torah represents the natural laws which make us citizens of the world.
The story has a factual error.
It says that the Antiquiites Authority “conformed” that the graves belonged to Jews.
This is NOT TRUE.
The human bones were found in a common grave with animal bones and next to indecent frescoes, which was the burial practice of PAGANS, not Jews.
It would be a big chilul hashem, not to mention a big political farce to spend a a single NIS to change the design of this critical care facility and divert limited funds to serve the meshuggah concerns of a fringe group of rabbonim whose central concern has been refuted by the facts. Pandering to these rabbonim for political purposes cannot be allowed to continue.
The Rma Says that after 100 years if the city needs to build a road on the cemetery they ALLOWED to do so, if they remove and rebury these kvarim..
you have to have supervision of course that the bones will not end up in some museum …….
If its true that the plan to build the emergency room underground would be cheaper than building an above ground emergency room and reinforcing it against rocket attacks – then they are in a big problem! what will now be the excuse to attack the chareidim?
They would probably go for the expensive plan to destroy the graves regardless of the cost so they are not dictated by chareidim.