Plans to build a wing of Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital on a gravesite have soured after leading rabbis have ruled against its go-ahead.
Leading rabbinic authorities, including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv of Jerusalem, issued a ruling forbidding construction work from taking place at Barzilai Hospital after Jewish graves were found at the construction site.
The letter, signed by Rabbi Shmuel Halevy Wosner and Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, and published in Wednesday’s Yated Ne’eman, states that Jewish law clearly forbids “disinterring a cluster of graves where the dead lie in a conventional position, even if the disinterment is done properly by G-d-fearing individuals performing the task according to Jewish law.”
While Operation “Cast Lead” was underway, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger gave his approval out of concern for saving lives. Most of the hospital’s facilities are not rocket-proof. Doctors from Barzilai Hospital complained that the subterranean emergency rooms were inadequate to provide proper treatment to the patients. After inspecting the intended construction site, Rabbi Metzger published his halachic opinion. “The building of an emergency room and a protected shelter is a form of actually saving lives which would override honoring the deceased [by not desecrating their graves],” Rabbi Metzger stated.
However, the recent rabbinical letter claims that the construction would only benefit patients in the future, and an alternative site is available that would not cause the desecration of graves.
The letter states, "There is no basis to permit [disinterment] in order to save lives in a case where the life-saving benefit will come only after a substantial amount of time to those who need it then, and there is no lifesaving for people currently in need. Mentioning the dispensation of saving lives in connection with future matters like these is a distortion that is in effect an act of uprooting the Torah.”
"And based on what we were told — that there is a possibility to add onto the hospital on another side where there would be no harm to graves — the entire discussion is superfluous."
Rabbi Elyashiv added, “Based on the inquiries and the information presented to me there is no room to permit disinterring the dead [found] at the hospital grounds in Ashkelon, and the new wing should be built in such a way that it does not harm the cemetery."
The Association for the Prevention of Grave Desecration had previously stated that building the wing on a site adjacent to the existing portion of the hospital would cause severe desecration of Jewish gravesites, noting that the matter has been clarified beyond any doubt.
The Association is also concerned that if the project were to go ahead, it would set a dangerous precedent with repercussions for all grave-preservation campaigns waged by Jews in Israel and abroad.
On Wednesday, the Chief Rabbinate requested from the Prime Minister’s Office a two-week extension before officially issuing a ruling. The reason for the extension, according to an official in the Rabbinate is “the need to make clarifications and completions.”