The Trans-Israel Highway Company resumed work on Tuesday at
the site where graves were discovered near Binyamina after
construction was stopped for several weeks while seeking ways
to preserve the burial caves, which are seriously threatened
by the road project.
Several weeks ago construction work ceased until a halachic
solution was found to prevent the destruction of the graves
after the skeletons and bones in two large burial caves
located along the route of the planned highway were
completely disinterred. During the past few weeks engineering
solutions have been found for most of the caves, with the
exception of the two large caves that were emptied of their
contents.
HaRav Michoh Rothschild, chairman of the Association for the
Prevention of Grave Desecration, notes that the senior
engineers, including Rami Manor, presented the Trans-Israel
Highway Company and the Transportation Ministry with orderly,
cost-efficient plans to solve the problem of the two burial
caves and to allow the continued paving of the road without
harming the caves, but the company is unwilling to make any
accommodation.
Last week Northern Police District Commander Dan Ronen
decided that if a solution acceptable to all parties is not
found by Tuesday morning of this week he would allow
construction work to resume. Despite feverish last-minute
attempts company heads could not be persuaded to employ an
engineering solution even after gedolei haposkim made
clear the caves may not be harmed despite the removal of the
human remains.
Monday night Rav Rothschild sent an urgent letter to Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and Transportation Minister Meir
Shetreet demanding they intervene immediately to stop
construction work and force the company to find engineering
solutions. "The Trans-Israel Highway Company is a firm made
up of small-minded haters of religion who took on an
important national project that is too much for them, both
from a planning and a human standpoint, leaving no
alternative other than to replace the project managers with
more sensitive, cultured individuals," Rav Rothschild writes.
"It would be a shame for Jewish graves in Eretz Yisroel, a
matter of great importance to millions of believing Jews
around the world, not to receive the minimal decency accorded
to a protected tree or flower or nature reserve or preserved
building. Apparently this is part of the trend and policy of
anti-religious coercion and attacks on the observant."
