Betar Illit is establishing its own cemetery which will serve residents after 120 years. The new cemetery will encompass 20 dunams of land taken from 800 dunams set aside for a new industrial area in the English Forest. Officials report about 40 residents are niftar annually, and until now kvura had to be in another city, at times at high expense. If the new plan is approved, then people will be able to be buried in the city’s own beis chaim.

According to chevra kadisha experts, 750 niftarim can be buried on one dunam so a 20-dunam cemetery will serve the city for years to come.

Mayor Meir Rubinstein announced “after years of building classrooms, shuls, yeshivos, parks, industrial area, transportation infrastructure, for the young and much more, the time has come to establish a cemetery”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)