Members of the Bnei Brak Beis Din headed by HaRav Nissim
Karelitz publicized a letter updating the changes in the
times of flights permissible to kohanim. At some times,
planes leaving or approaching Ben Gurion airport in Israel
fly over a cemetery. This results exposing the kohanim on
the plane to impurity that is forbidden to them.
In the past, our gedolim warned the public of difficult
problems concerning the threat of impurity forbidden to
kohanim in the plane routes to and from the Ben Gurion
airport. From time to time, the Bnei Brak Beis Din reports
changes in the flight routes and the times of the flights
permitted/prohibited to kohanim according to the vital
updated information they receive.
In the letter publicized just recently, the following facts
were noted:
1. Flights departing from 5:00 a.m. in the morning and
throughout the day do not cross over cemeteries until three
quarters of an hour before sunset.
2. Landings at all hours do not cross over cemeteries, a
clause which is valid up till the 13th of Av, 5773 (July 20,
2013). After this date, the ban will probably revert to its
former status, forbidding night landings (pending no further
announcement).
The letter was signed by the members of the Beis Din:
Rabbanim Yehuda Silman; Sariel Rosenberg; Yaakov Farbstein;
Chaim Wosner; Moshe Shaul Klein and Dovid Morgenstern.
