Youth Buried Despite Rabbis’ Objections; Religious Council Accepts Fact

Sixteen-year-old Aryeh Spectorovski, the victim of a road accident, was buried yesterday in the Jewish cemetery in Afuleh despite orders from the Rabbinate forbidding it because the boy’s mother is not Jewish according to religious law. The Rabbinate’s injunction aroused anger in the Jezreel Valley town. The Israel-born youngster was circumcized as an infant, was barmitzvah and had been called up to read the Law in Afuleh’s Great Synagogue. The Afuleh Religious Council decided today to accept, ex post facto, the youth’s burial and consider the case closed. The rabbis had claimed that he was not entitled to a Jewish burial because his mother was non-Jewish and had never undergone Orthodox conversion rites. The boy’s father was killed in a road accident a year ago. He was buried by friends of the family near his father’s grave.