Many thousands of people are expected to participate Sunday morning in the funeral procession for Rabbi Yitzhak Tuvia Weiss, the Ga'avad of the Eidah Hachareidit of Jerusalem, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95.
The funeral will begin at 10:00 am and will leave the deceased's home in the Givat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. It will pass through the Mea Shearim neighborhood, and from there it will reach the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery in the capital.
Police announced that starting at 10 am many roads in Jerusalem would be closed to traffic to make way for the funeral procession. The closed roads will include: all the roads leading to Shabbat Square in Jerusalem, Chaim Bar-Lev St. along its entire length in both directions from the national police headquarters to the IDF Square and all the roads leading to it , the streets where the funeral procession will move - Hanevi'im, Nablus road, Sultan Suleiman street, and Rockefeller street to the Mount of Olives.
"Due to the expected roadblocks in the area of the funeral procession, there may be traffic congestion and drivers will be directed to alternative routes," the police said. "The driving public is requested to avoid arriving in the area in the late morning and afternoon hours unnecessarily, and to obey the police officers' instructions."
Rabbi Weiss had been hospitalized in serious condition for several days before passing away during Shabbat, in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in the capital.
Rabbi Weiss served as Ga'avad for 19 years, moving to Jerusalem from Belgium in order to take on the position. He was born in what was then Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), and escaped the Holocaust by being placed on the famous Kindertransport and arriving in London, where he remained for many years, becoming a prominent rosh kollel and later the rabbi of the Etz Chaim synagogue.
Rabbi Weiss moved to Antwerp where he lived for 37 years and became a dayan (rabbinical judge) on the Antwerp Beit Din (rabbinical court). In 2003, he was selected as Ga'avad of the Eidah Hachareidit of Jerusalem, to replace his predecessor, Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Dushinsky.