Most of the Jewish victims of Pan American Airways Flight 103 have now been buried, according to Yehuda Brodie, administrator of the Beth Din in Manchester, England.
He made that statement to Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, chief rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth, who joined Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other dignitaries Wednesday at memorial services for victims of the air disaster in Lockerbie, Scotland.
The New York-bound jumbo jet disintegrated 31,000 feet over Lockerbie about an hour after leaving London’s Heathrow Airport on the night of Dec. 21.
British investigators have determined that a bomb concealed in a suitcase was responsible. All 259 passengers and crew members aboard died, as did 11 people on the ground.
Brodie and Shlomo Adler of the Manchester Chevra Kaddisha (burial society) have been counseling bereaved Jewish families, helping identify the dead and expediting the burials.
The exact number of Jewish victims of the disaster is not known. According to one report, 40 kosher meals were ordered on the flight. But not all Jews order kosher meals.
The chief rabbi attended the Christian memorial service at Drysesdale parish church in Lockerbie.
He explained that it was important to pay his respects to all the victims and to honor the work of the emergency services.
Jakobovits was in New York on Sunday for the funeral of a bomb victim, Joseph Miller, treasurer of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, whose body was later flown to Israel for burial.
Two other Jewish victims of the disaster have been identified by the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia. David Dornstein, 28, a former Philadelphian who was living in Israel, worked for the New York-based Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education. He helped organize its July conference in Israel.
Also killed on the plane was Martin Apfelbaum, a Philadelphia stamp dealer who wrote on stamp collecting for three trade publications.
Meanwhile, El Al, Israel’s national airline, claimed its business here in London has picked up since the disaster, because the stringency of its security measures has been widely publicized.
Passengers flying from London to New York have been switching to El Al, a spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle. He said the carrier would increase its flights from one to three a week.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
