A large demonstration was held this past Monday (26 Shevat)
in front of the Haifa municipality, protesting the
desecration of the graves near the ancient cemetery of
Haifa, where the Yaffo Beltway (Bypass) project is currently
working.
On Monday, the archaeologists continued their "rescue digs"
and damaged part of the inner burial cave. Avreichim
and residents of Haifa arrived in the evening in order to
gather the earth and the bones which had been removed from
the cave and collect them in bags in preparation for their
burial. The scenes on the sight were very shocking.
After Haifa mayor Amram Mitzna and the Yefeh Nof company,
which is do the construction rejected the idea of postponing
the work, the archaeologists continued to dig under the
flight of stairs which will serve as an entrance to the
underground tunnel and which will eventually be a passageway
for pedestrians. Under the stairs, a burial large burial
cave was discovered, which breaks off into a number of
additional burial cavities. In the wake of the appeals of
Rabbi Moshe Gafni to the director general of the Antiquities
Authority, Shmuel Dorfman, and to the secretary of the
government Yitzhak Herzog, the inner burial cavities were
not dug up.
The representatives of the chareidi sector in the
municipality were at a loss for what to do. UTJ's
representative Rabbi Chaim Williger arrived on the site
early in the morning, but was forced to wait for a long time
until being allowed to enter. When he finally went inside,
he saw a horrifying scene. Bones and earth had been removed
from the front part of the cave on two levels at the sides
of the entrance hall of the cave.
Had the Yefeh Nof company waited for official instructions
regarding the conducting of the work, it would have been
possible to receive the approval of the director general of
the Antiquities Authority, Shmuel Dorfman, who was on his
way from the United States to Israel, and to dig only up to
the lid of the cave, without penetrating inside. In that
manner all the inner graves would have been spared.
News of the desecration of the graves and the shocking
scenes quickly spread to all of the kollelim in
Haifa, and at the initiative of the chareidi rabbonim of the
city a protest rally in front of the Haifa municipality was
organized within an hour. Despite the short notice, many
chareidim from all circles arrived.
At a stirring manifestation of kiddush Shem Shomayim,
chapters of Tehillim were read and the prayer of R'
Chaim Falaji regarding the desecration of graves was
recited. The police who arrived on the scene stood by idly,
because the rally was so orderly. The mayor, Amram Mitzna,
against whom the protest was directed, did not go out to the
demonstrators. UTJ's other representative, Rabbi Aryeh
Blitental, coordinated all aspects of the rally and all of
the talks with pertinent parties from his sick bed at
home.
During the afternoon, Mitzna went down to the excavation
site in the lower part of the city. He then said that on
Tuesday, work would be conducted with an air hammer. Working
that way is liable to endanger the inner complex of an
additional cave which is outside the limits of the project.
If the cave is damaged and opened the archaeologists will
probably swoop down on it and desecrate it too. Mitzna did
say that if the inner complex of the cave is not damaged by
the air hammer, they should still refrain from conducting
any digging there. But all this doesn't lessen the other
awful deeds being perpetrated on the site.
On Monday evening, members of the Nachlas Halevi'im
community arrived on the site to collect the many bones
which lay scattered around the area. They worked carefully
and meticulously, in order to find all of the bones and the
earth which had been removed from the graves. Inspectors
from the Federation for the Prevention of Graves remained on
the site of the excavations the entire day, and based on
their reports, the activists of the Federation went to the
homes of the gedolei Yisroel and told them the
shocking facts.
