Lubinsky - Is Change Finally Coming to Har Hazeisim?

Menachem Lubinsky..
Har Hazeitim Preservation..
03 January '12..

It was to say the least a disturbing sight on a bright Sunday morning on Har Hazeisim in Yerushalayim. As I turned to say Kaddish marking the yahrzeit of my father (Harav Chaim Pinchas Lubinsky zt”l), I faced an entire row of destroyed kevorim, apparently by boulders hurled from above. The scene on a level just above where my parents lie was one of more destruction, including hollow gravesites with their matzeivos strewn about. Although the area was repeatedly targeted by Arab hooligans, it is the first time that it came so close to the graves of my parents. Turning away from the kevarim were Arab houses, one with a newly posted flag of Hamas. (I learned later that Hamas was on a flag campaign in East Jerusalem.) In fact, during an earlier tour of nearby Arab neighborhoods with Ateret Kohanim, some of it in an armored jeep, I noticed several Hamas flags, perhaps on par with the number of Palestinian flags.

The destruction that had apparently occurred a month or so ago, explained the officials that I subsequently met with, was because there was still no coverage by the rapidly growing number of surveillance cameras being installed on Har Hazeisim, thanks to the efforts of the International Committee for Har Hazeisim, headed by its founder Avrohom Lubinsky (my brother). While some 80 of a planned 137 cameras were already in place, 60 were functioning with the others still undergoing tests. Officials promised that within a few weeks some of the additional cameras would be installed on the Kollel Polen section as well as the area that includes the maareh where three rabbeyim of Ger lie, also frequently targeted by Arabs.

In the newly built fortified command center with its high tech monitors, three security agents monitor the screens 24/7 for any signs of abnormal activity. Just last week, the camera captured an Arab in his late 20’s sitting on a step and conversing on a cellphone. He soon rose, moved over to a nearby grave, and labored to push a headstone to a nearby valley where it shattered in pieces. Obviously preparing for his next act of wanton destruction, the security people in the monitoring station summoned the Har Hazeisim security team who within minutes pounced on the thug, holding him until police arrived. In early December, he was sentenced to 3 months in prison. What was perhaps most disturbing is that he told investigators that he was paid NIS 1000 by the handler with whom he had apparently been conversing prior to perpetrating his act. The police were ostensibly investigating who the handlers were.

Kushner - US State Department True to Form on the Mount of Olives

Arlene Kushner
frontpagemag.com
20 December '11

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/20/us-state-department-true-to-form-on-the-mount-of-olives/



Is the US State Department capable of getting it right when addressing deprivation of human rights endured by Jewish people? Its conduct with regard to the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem gives serious pause.

On the slopes of the Mount of Olives (Hebrew: Har Hazeitim), in eastern Jerusalem, lies a 2,500 year-old Jewish cemetery, bearing a legacy of enormous import and sanctity. Among those buried in its 1,500 Jewish graves are prophets, Zionist leaders, rabbis, writers, and an Israeli prime minister.

From 1948, when eastern Jerusalem was captured by Jordan, until its liberation by Israel in 1967, no Jews were permitted at the site; horrendous damage was done to the cemetery during those years. Although restoration has been taking place since 1967, until recently action to protect the site had been insufficient. That is now changing as the Israeli government has become more vigorously involved and the International Committee for the Preservation of Har HaZeitim has been established.

Yet vandalism still regularly occurs at the cemetery. Arabs drop cinderblocks from the top of the Mount down the hillside, in a frequently successful effort to crack headstones. Additionally, mourners and those visiting graves of loved ones are often harassed by Arabs throwing stones and require an armed Israeli security escort. Not infrequently, those mourners and visitors are American citizens.

Has Israel abandoned the Mount of Olives?

It seems inconceivable that nothing can be done to deter predations on the slopes where Jews have been interring their dead for more than 3,000 years.


JPost Editorial
15 May '10

Lost among more sensational findings last week were the state comptroller’s lamentations over the sad state of the Mount of Olives Cemetery – the Jewish people’s most ancient burial ground and final resting place to a pantheon of religious, spiritual, cultural and national paragons, including even the prophets Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi.

While noting with approval moves begun in December by the Prime Minister’s Office to supervise security at the cemetery, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss excoriated ongoing neglect by successive governments: “Repair work proceeds at a snail’s pace, maintenance standards are inadequate, security is sorely lacking and vandalism and criminal acts continue unabated, accentuating the danger that funds and labor already invested at the site will go down the drain.”

These admonitions were ironically underscored on the very day the nation marked the 43rd anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification. As parades and celebrations were underway elsewhere, busloads of funeral participants were stoned near the cemetery. Four mourners needed medical care. Those who made it inside found 23 headstones smashed in one section alone.

It seems inconceivable that nothing can be done to deter deliberate unremitting predations on the mountain slopes where Jews have been interring their dead for more than 3,000 years. Its proximity to the city and the Temple Mount, as well as the traditional proscription against burials within Jerusalem’s walls, made the Mount of Olives hallowed already in First Temple days.

The chain had been unbroken, save for 19 years of Jordanian occupation (1948-67), during which the cemetery was callously and systematically desecrated in blatant violation of the Hashemite Kingdom’s pro forma undertakings to preserve holy places. The destruction was unbridled and premeditated. Ancient tombstones were torn out to be used as latrine floors, urinal walls and pavement stones. The Intercontinental Hotel and Jericho Road were constructed over graves. Garbage was regularly dumped on the tombs.

After Jerusalem’s liberation, burials were resumed but dignity, good order and safety weren’t restored. Though public figures such as former prime minister Menachem Begin, author Shai Agnon, poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, rabbis Shlomo Goren and Zvi Yehuda Kook – among numerous others – asked to be laid to rest there, their choice failed to bring even minimal proper upkeep and security to what doubtlessly is a cemetery of historical continuity and significance unmatched anywhere in the world.

AS UNDERSCORED by the state comptroller, the cemetery is visited regularly by Arab vandals, whose favorite target is unaccountably the Gerrer Rebbe’s tombstone, but Begin’s has also been damaged over the years. They sometimes smear human feces on the tombs and deluge them with household rubbish and construction debris. Markers have been daubed in tar and paint, hate graffiti has been scrawled and gravestones have been hammered and shattered.

(Read full editorial)

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