When Claudia Pesinkov, a 92-year-old immigrant from Russia, died peacefully of old age, she was held in a morgue for six days before members of a kibbutz volunteered to bury her.
The reason for the long delay: Pesinkov, who considered herself Jewish, immigrated to Israel without documents or relatives who could confirm her Jewishness.
At the age of 16, Fasher had registered herself in Leningrad as Jewish. But because her mother was not Jewish, she, too, had a delayed burial.
After four days of exhaustive yet vain searches for a place to bury Fasher, her family decided to approach the Israeli media.
The case was featured in every newspaper, on every radio news show and current affairs program, and even reached the Knesset.
Finally, late last month, Lilia Vasserbly, Jana Fasher’s cousin, appeared on Israel Television and said, “Show me another country in which you can be born, give birth, live, even give your life for, but you can not die in it.”
Fasher was buried the next day at Kibbutz Barkai, which responded to the public outrage.
The cases of Pesinkov and Fasher are not isolated ones.
Such individuals have Israeli identity cards that list “not registered” under nationality — in other words, no registered religion. As a result, their relatives often face difficulties in finding them a resting place.
According to the Orthodox interpretation of halachah, or traditional Jewish law, only those born to a Jewish mother or, if converted in Israel, undergo an Orthodox conversion, are recognized as Jewish, entitling them to buried in a Jewish cemetery in Israel.
Since the days of the founding of the State of Israel, the Orthodox establishment has had a monopoly of authority over all Jewish life-cycle ceremonies, including burials.
There was one exception: Kibbutzim were given control over their own burial grounds and were free to choose their own ceremonies and traditions.
Menuha Nehona, or Proper Rest, a not-for-profit organization of volunteers, was established in 1986 by attorney Avraham Gal to address the problems of Jews and non-Jews who wished to have a secular burial in Jerusalem.
Until then, only the kibbutzim were able to answer this need, but they were quickly running our of space.
At the same time, the Reform movement in Israel was also searching for alternative burial solutions.
Both organizations were met with general apathy at best, and with hostility by the Orthodox community.
In 1987, the two groups were joined by other organization in presenting a petition before the High Court of Justice for a burial license and land for a cemetery in Jerusalem.
The became the first court case in Israel’s history in which the attorney general refused to represent the government, saying that nothing in Israeli law prevents anyone from receiving a license to operate a cemetery.
Private lawyers, too, refused to to represent the government for similar reasons.
Before the High Court reached a decision, the Ministry of Religious Affairs offered a compromise: Because Jerusalem’s cemetery space was limited, it promised to issue the license once land outside the city was found.
But several years passed and no land was found, so Menuha Nehona resumed legal action.
In April 1992, the High Court instructed the government to respond positively to Menuha Nehona’s petition within a reasonable period of time.
But it was not until last month, three years later, that a ministerial-level committee announced the allocation of land for a non-Orthodox cemetery near an existing cemetery near Beersheba.
The Ministerial Committee for Alternate Burial, which is headed by Justice Minister David Libai and includes Immigrant and Absorption Minister Yair Tsaban, also agreed to take steps to allocate additional alternative burial sites in Jerusalem, Haifa and in the center of Israel.
The committee members said they were acting in response to what they perceived as the real need and distress of non-Jews who cannot find burial grounds in Israel. Many of those involved in such cases are new immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish.
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau expressed regret over the committee’s decision.
The burial of any Jew not in accordance with halachah, or traditional Jewish law, “is distressing to us,” Lau said, adding, “The loss of one of our people’s common denominators, a Jewish burial, and the fact that we are no more united by burial is doubly distressing.”
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron took a milder view, saying recently that alternative cemeteries are in inevitability, particularly in view of all the emigres whose Jewishness is in doubt.
Menuha Nehona, which has been joined by the Israeli Conservation movement and has become a national organization with branches across the country, is bidding for the Beersheba burial ground and license.
The group also intends to bid for any other grounds allocated for non-Orthodox burials.
Amir Shacham, a Menuha Nehona board member, said his group will divide any cemeteries that come under its control into sections serving each religious and secular group represented by the organization, including the Reform and Conservative movements.
“I am convinced that Menuha Nehona cemeteries will provide an answer to all those who face difficulties in finding a proper burial place in Israel,” Shacham said.
Shacham said even though Menuha Nehona has been active for nearly 10 years, it was the massive numbers of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who made the latest changes in burial policy possible. As evidence of this, he pointed to a recent change of heart by Chevra Kadisha, the Orthodox-sponsored burial society.
After years of ardently opposing alternative burial ceremonies, the group now welcomes the idea, saying it is relieved not to have to face the problem of burying those whose Jewishness is in doubt.
Shacham said he also hopes that the new burial policy will bring an end to the practice of burying those whose Jewishness is questioned in Christian cemeteries or in Arab villages.
Responding to public pressures, the Religious Affairs Ministry recently signed a rental agreement with Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim near Jerusalem for a 4-acre non- Orthodox cemetery.
But according to Shacham, Menuha Nehona has yet to receive the license to run it.
“We are still waiting for the real breakthrough — to get the land, and start operating,” he said.
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.
