A former mayor of Beersheba, Israel was buried Thursday in a Christian cemetery in Falls Church, Va., culminating a legal struggle over whether he was Christian or Jewish when he died.
The body of Haviv Schieber, 74, who left Israel for the United States in 1958, had been sitting in an Arlington, Va., hospital since his death Dec. 31, while a Baptist minister and a Lubavitch rabbi argued in Arlington Circuit Court over Schieber’s religious status.
On Monday, Judge Benjamin Kendrick ruled that “there is no question (Schieber) was born a Jew but became a Christian.”
According to the book “The Campaign to Discredit Israel” by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Schieber founded the one-man Holy Land State Committee in 1968, which advocated a democratic, secular, demilitarized state for Jews, Moslems and Christians in the Holy Land.
The minister, the Rev. Dale Crowley Jr., had testified that Schieber fully converted to Christianity, and noted that he had taken care of Schieber for more than two years.
Schieber’s son, Daniel Reveh of Israel, had filed an affidavit claiming his father wanted a Jewish funeral. Reveh was represented by Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan of the Rockville, Md., Chabad House, who argued that Reveh — as next-of-kin — should decide how to bury Schieber.
Father and son had not seen each other for 25 years.
In an interview Tuesday, Kaplan said the trial was replete with “hearsay as to what (Schieber) may have thought.”
Kaplan’s attorney, Donald Chaiken, had contended that the deceased was Jewish because “once a Jew, always a Jew,” according to press reports.
Kendrick reportedly responded that “Jewish law has about as much standing in this court as Chinese law.”
Testifying on Crowley’s behalf, noted Jewish anti-Zionist Alfred Lilienthal said a Jew can change religions. In an interview Tuesday, Lilienthal said Schieber had requested a funeral “that would lead him to Jesus” when he last saw Schieber alive Dec. 27.
Lilienthal also testified that the argument of “once a Jew, always a Jew” is racist. He told the court that Adolf Hitler was the “ultimate racist” in calling for the extermination of anyone born from a Jewish mother regardless of that person’s religious convictions.
One of Kaplan’s Chabad colleagues, Rabbi Bentzion Geisinsky, said Thursday that Reveh would not appeal the decision.
On Wednesday, Kaplan refused to sign the court order turning the body over to Crowley. Geisinsky explained that Kaplan, “as an observant Jew,” felt he could not in good conscience sign.
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