A fire broke out during the neitz minyan in the Ma’aras HaMachpela today, Monday, the second day chol hamoed Pesach. Some of the mispallalim had to be evacuated from the area until the blaze was brought under control. It took about a half hour to bring the blaze under control during which time the Machpelah was closed.
It appears the large number of candles lit resulted in the blaze. Baruch Hashem damage was limited to black marks on the walls.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
2 Responses
May I point out a common mistake: there is no such thing as a “neitz” minyan. A “neitz” is a non-kosher bird. Sunrise is “honeitz hachamoh”. The hei of “honeitz” is part of the word, not a prefix indicating the definite article.
Milhouse, that’s actually a machlokes among the baalei dikduk. Also, common usage is to call it neitz. The next question is whether it takes hubris to call them vasikin minyanim instead of kevasikin.