Scores of demonstrators arrived Monday (11 Tammuz) at the
site of the old cemetery in Tiveria, in order to protest the
intentions to dig there. The excavations were supposed to be
conducted by the Antiquities Authority on behalf of the
Church of Scotland but they were postponed at least for
now.
Earlier, the chairman of the Internal Affairs Committee of
the Knesset, Rabbi Moshe Gafni, warned the Prime Minister's
Office about the serious developments which are likely to
unfold on the site. He said that the excavations also
violated the coalition agreement with UTJ.
In response, the government's secretary announced that the
excavations would be postponed. Rabbi Gafni though is not
satisfied with the announcement, and demands that a basic
solution which will prevent excavations in all cemeteries in
the country, especially in the old cemetery in Tiveria, be
formulated.
Also this past Sunday, demonstrations were held in the plaza
of the Church of Scotland protesting the intention to build
a hotel and a church on the site. The demonstrators said
that the protesting would be increased if the work
continued. They noted that the graves of Amoro'im who lived
in Tiveria, as well as the grave of Rebbi Yitzchok Nafcha,
are located on the site slated for the building of the
hotel, and said: "We won't let history be erased by the
building of a hotel." The Antiquities Authority announced
that the excavations on the site would be postponed to a
later date and that the fate of the project could be
determined only at the termination of the excavations.
Parallel to these developments, contacts on a parliamentary
level between Rabbi Gafni and the Prime Minister's Office
continued. The Education Minister's advisor, Chezi Shnelzon
continued to attempt to prevent the diggings, and along with
the Ministry for Internal Security warned that the
excavations are liable to result in superfluous and stormy
clashes at the excavation site. MK Yossi Paritsky of Shinui
defended the decision to excavate on the site and said: "It
is forbidden to let the chareidim hurt tourism in Tiveria,
and forbidden to let an investment of 20 million dollars for
the building of a hotel, a hostel and a church -- an
extension to the existing one -- go down the drain."
As of now, construction on the area of the Church of
Scotland has been halted. Rabbi Gafni demands that the Prime
Minister's Office not take one-sided steps, in violation of
the coalition agreement. He denounced the policy of
postponing and re-postponing the diggings, and said that it
must be clearly established that it is forbidden to conduct
digs wherever there are graves and wherever the possibly of
desecrating human bones exists. The feasibility of granting
the Scots alternative grounds or finding another solution
must be examined. "But we can't keep on postponing and re-
postponing the issue and battling over it each time anew,"
he stressed.
The Federation for the Prevention of the Desecration of
graves was involved in the efforts to prevent the
desecration this past Monday. Its heads contacted every
possible person or group which they thought might help
postpone the diggings.
