Delegation Tries to Halt Construction of Housing over Pinsk Jewish Cemetery

Enraged at the recent discovery that an apartment building was being constructed on the grounds of the Jewish cemetery in Pinsk, a Jewish delegation traveled recently to Belarus to call a halt to the desecration.

Headed by Rabbi Hertz Frankel, spokesman for Athra Kadisha, the Society for the Preservation of Jewish Holy Sites, and a member of the President’s Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the delegation included Rabbi Avrohom Schlesinger, chief Rabbi of Geneva, Rabbi Yitzchok Wolpin, chief Rabbi of Belarus, Sholom Fried of Vienna and Rabbis Aaron Gertner and Shmuel Weintraub, of the Athra Kadisha in Israel.

The group met with Belarus Foreign Minister Piotr Kravchenko, U.S. Ambassador to Belarus David Schwartz and First Secretary for the American Embassy Jeffrey Glassman.

Frankel reported that he made it clear that “the world Jewish community was shocked to have uncovered ongoing construction on the grounds of the Jewish cemetery in Pinsk.”

He continued, “After the second World War and the destruction of the major Jewish community in Belarus, we at least expected the government to honor and respect the dead, to allow them rest in peace and not in pieces.”

The foreign minister responded, according to Frankel, that Belarus understands the sensitivity of the Jewish community to the synagogues, cemeteries and holy places in his country. He promised to review the situation.

However, the day after the meeting with the foreign minister, the delegation visited Pinsk and was “was shocked to find that additional digging of the cemetery site was performed by heavy-duty earth equipment in the last 48 hours.”

The group held a meeting with Pinsk Mayor Vladimir Timoschenko and Pinsk city council members. Through an interpreter, Frankel urged the mayor to “cease all construction on the site of the cemetery, to remove all the heavy earth-moving equipment from the cemetery and to stop and desist from any future plans of building a housing complex on the grounds of the cemetery.”

The mayor and city council did not make any firm commitment to stop the cemetery desecration, according to Frankel.

If Pinsk authorities do not comply with the delegation’s request to protect the cemetery, Frankel foresees protests on par with those that took place in a suburb of Hamburg earlier this year when a shopping mall was slated to be erected on a Jewish cemetery site.

In March, hasidic Jews from around the world took part in protests on the site of the ancient burial ground, some physically halting construction by chaining themselves to bulldozers.

Negotiations with the construction company and officials of Hamburg are still in process, and Frankel says he is “cautiously optimistic” that the shopping mall will be built upon stilts, protecting the remains in what was once the ottensen cemetery.

But Frankel is not so optimistic about protecting Jewish cemeteries as anti- Semitism heightens in the former Soviet republics.

“Unfortunately this is becoming a serious problem in Belarus and Eastern Europe,” said Frankel. “With freedom sometimes comes irresponsibility.”

But Frankel believes that Jews will not allow the desecration to continue. He points to the large numbers of American Jews whose ancestors are from Pinsk.

“We hope they will all get involved to stop this terrible desecration,” he said.

Wolpin, chief Rabbi of Belarus, appealed to American and world Jewish leaders to continue the pressure to save the Pinsk cemetery and to make sure that other cemeteries in Belarussian cities will not become targeted areas for apartment building and road projects.