JERUSALEM (JNS) – A fence that separates graves at a cemetery in the Israeli city of Beit She’an based on religion will be lowered and covered with vegetation following an uproar over the separate burial of a victim of the Hamas attack whom the Chief Rabbinate does not consider Jewish.
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The Chief Rabbinate official’s announcement on Thursday came after public criticism over the burial of Alina Plahti, 23, who was buried last month at a separate compound of the city’s New Cemetery.
Her father is Jewish and she began a conversion process during her IDF service but had not completed it.
Plahti, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival near the border with Gaza, was interred in the section of the cemetery for people who are not considered Jewish according to the Orthodox interpretation of halachah, Jewish religious law.
Her family expressed the wish that she had been buried in the central section of the cemetery, and not be separated by a tall fence.
Rabbinical officials have issued various rulings on the mixed burial of Jews and non-Jews, ranging from unequivocal rejection of the prospect to permission to do it if this helps preserve peaceful relations.
Religious ceremonies for Jews in Israel, including funerals and weddings, remain under the control of the ultra-Orthodox.
Why are they capitulating? If she was not Jewish yet, then she was not Jewish. Stop the playing around with definitions. And if she was trying to be Jewish, although halochikly she could have been at that gathering on Shabbos, how sincere was she?
I’m sure they could have come up with another good idea other than to blur the distinctions between Jew, non-Jew, and not yet Jewish.
Delicate and sensitive situation, I think the bushes idea is brilliant
Sad that she didn’t get to complete her conversion
she is still a Goya.
Still hadn’t converted al pi Halacha.
Feelings are not Halacha
Family needs to understand
Is this a copy paste from other sites…?“Orthodox interpretation of halachah”