A large, stately burial cave, discovered about a week ago in
the Jerusalem Mount Scopus (Har Hatzofim) area, has
been desecrated in a most disgraceful manner by Antiquities
Authority archaeologists in violation of an agreement reached
with chareidi grave protection activists only hours
earlier.
The Moriah municipal company recently conducted
infrastructure work and paved a new road to connect the
Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem highways with an underground
tunnel reaching the Mount Scopus area.
A number of ancient burial caves from the Bayis Sheini
period were discovered near Mount Scopus. Last week, an
additional large cave containing relics and human bones was
found. Antiquities Authority employees concealed discovery of
the cave but did not fully seal its opening so that they
could enter it whenever they pleased. On Shabbos parshas
Emor) unidentified individuals entered the cave. The
Antiquities Authority claims that they were robbers, but
inspectors of the Federation for the Prevention of the
Desecration of Graves find this hard to believe. They say
that it is quite possible that archaeologists entered the
cave on Shabbos and this explains why the cave opening was
not sealed on Friday.
On Sunday, Federation and Religious Affairs Ministry
inspectors arriving at the site discovered that the cave had
been desecrated on Shabbos. They found fragments of relics
and large quantities of human bones which had been
indiscriminately scattered over the ground.
The archaeologists tried to enter the cave a number of times
during the day with police backing, claiming that since a
robbery had taken place, they had to document the cave's
contents from inside.
On Sunday afternoon, police officer Yosef Ohayon held a
meeting in his office with the archaeologists and
representatives of the Religious Affairs Ministry. When no
agreement was reached the officer said that work would stop
so that deliberations could continue the following day.
During the night, a number of avreichim guarded the
cave in order to prevent its desecration as per the
agreement. At 4 a.m., police stormed the area and arrested
the avreichim who were guarding the caves. The police
officers were accompanied by a group of archaeologists headed
by regional archaeologist, John Zeligman. The archaeologists
then entered the cave and continued to dig. They opened more
apertures which had been sealed for hundreds of years and
wreaked havoc in the cave, desecrating the bones of people
buried there since the Bayis Sheini period some 2,000
years ago.
Activists of the Federation for the Prevention of Desecration
to Graves claim that this was an inordinate violation of the
agreement that had been reached with the police the day
before. They further claimed that the Moriah company, which
belongs to the Jerusalem Municipality, must demand that the
Antiquities Authority stop all work in the cave immediately.
They spoke with UTJ representatives in the Municipality and
on the Moriah board of directors, demanding that the
Antiquities Authority stop the desecration. The activists
sharply criticized the police officer who enabled the
Antiquities Authority to violate the agreement. They claim
that the police backed the criminal behavior of the
archaeologists.
