Following a series of negotiations between Spanish government authorities and representatives from the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE), the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), the Jewish Federation of Spain and the Jewish communities of Madrid a moving funeral was held this week before the reinterment of 105 of the Toledo kedoshim.
During recovery excavations carried out by Spanish Antiquities Authority archaeologists to make way for the expansion of a school in the city of Toledo, medieval graves were dug up, prompting an international outcry. According to Jewish tradition many martyrs and gedolim were buried in Toledo, including the Rosh and Rabbenu Yonah zt"l.
Following the series of meetings that accompanied the uncompromising campaign, representatives of the Castel la Mancha Regional Council, which has jurisdiction over Toledo, gave orders to stop digging until satisfactory halachic, engineering and legal solutions could be found for the remains.
For the past six months representatives have fought a tough, unremitting battle to ensure the kedoshim would be reburied in exactly the same graves they were extracted from. The representatives of the various Jewish organizations had to resist heavy pressure from various groups that wanted to put the skeletons in an alternative burial site.
Early Sunday morning the remains of the 105 Toledo martyrs were handed over in 103 coffins (three skeletons were found in one of the coffins) to representatives of the CPJCE, who had traveled from London, representatives of the CER arriving from Brussels and members of the Madrid Chevra Kadisha to prepare them for the burial.
In the afternoon the coffins were brought to the yard of the school next to the cemetery the bodies had been taken from. Following a mournful levaya the remains were reinterred in their original graves. Before the graves were covered over HaRav Elyakim Schlesinger, the rov of Madrid, and HaRav Moshe Ben Dahan spoke movingly, asking the niftarim for forgiveness.
The representatives expressed hopes that cooperation would continue and that in the future Spanish officials would seek their assistance from the planning stages in order to prevent grave desecration.
