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"The State Must Enable In-Ground Burial"
by Yechiel Sever
In a discussion held by the Knesset Finance Committee during
the election interim, in which a budget for the continued
development of conventional land burial was to be submitted,
committee chairman Rabbi Gafni invited the Religions
Minister to state his official position regarding the
pressing lack of burial space in Israel and especially in
view of the fact that many citizens who are interested in
open land, or field, burial, which is the halachically
correct way, are unable to be buried this and must submit to
concentrated, or layered, burial against their will.
Because of the failure to develop new cemeteries in the
large cities, the existing facilities have been building as
many as four floors over areas of existing cemeteries. The
individual graves are filled with earth, but the structure
is concrete. Some rabbinical authorities permit it, but many
consider it preferable or mandatory to be buried directly in
the earth.
Rabbi Gafni said that there are large sectors of the
population which demand plot burial, as per halachic
requirement, adding that according to a report presented in
the Knesset Legislative Committee, the tiered form is not
even economically better, because of the huge costs involved
and also since it does not reflect the public good. Rabbi
Gafni said that many people would be willing to travel
farther away to get earth burial. The Religions Minister
said that his staff was working on solutions.
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