There are rabbinic leaders oppose the bill, which was approved in the Knesset in a first reading, and is expected to pass second and third readings soon, when the main points of the law allow the opening of Yemenite graves.
According to the bill, the opening of graves of Jewish minors from Yemen, the East or the Balkans will be authorized to identify and conduct genetic testing of family ties.
According to the law, family members of minors who disappeared and who were allegedly buried were brought to court for ordering the opening of a grave, removing the body for identification and genetic testing of family ties.
In some of the cases, the families were indeed told about the burial place of their relative, although the family often did not attend the funeral and the question was asked how the family know with certainty their loved on was buried there.
For this reason, and in order to assist in the process of locating graves and verifying the burial places of the disappeared by means of genetic identification, it is proposed that a request for the opening of a grave, removal of a corpse from a grave, and genetic testing for family ties should be submitted to the family court by a relative who supports the existence of doubt as to the identity of the body buried in the grave for which the request was submitted.
According to MK (Likud) Nurit Koren who initiated the law, she also received halakhic approval, and she also mentions the rulings of the late HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef ZT”L, but opponents of the law have already stated that the words of Maran do not match what is proposed by law.
In an interview Wednesday morning 12 Cheshvan with Rabbi Yaakov Rosa to Noam Zeigman on Kol Berama Radio, he said that there is indeed a halakhic ruling by Rabbi Yosef authorizing the opening of a grave, but that ruling does not cover what the law wishes to allow. Maran’s ruling speaks of opening for the purpose of seeing and then closing the grave, but the law seeks to open, in addition to extracting bones made taking DNA.
Moreover, Rabbi Rosa argues that the opening of a grave according to halakha is permitted in order to permit an agunah or to prevent a crime, but to know whether a person lives somewhere or to know the identity of the deceased is a weighty halachic question.
He concluded by saying that the halachic issues facing the law currently being legislated are not yet closed, and that he leaves the arena to the MKs in the hope that they will do what they should do, noting the fact that they are in contact with him.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Assuming the worst, the thousands of non-Ashkenazi babies from frum families were kidnapped to be raised as secular zionists – we are talking about events that happened 60+ years ago. While most of those children are alive, they are old people and if they are interested in finding their relatives it can be done with opening graves (cf. looking for the real grandparents of Argentinian babies whose parents were murdered during a civil war 40 years and the babies adopted by those associated with the murderers). The criminals in the matter were people who were adults and it is probably a bit late to do any prosecutions. That being the case, it is reasonable to ask if halacha allows opening Jewish graves in order to answer an historical question. When the goyim (or secular Jews) want to dig up Jewish bones we usually object.
Seeing as we are speculating here anyway, I offer my take on the subject. Those who alleged that the child (children) died were not kosher witnesses. As such, the child may well be alive, and because of that, may end up marrying a forbidden relative. Further, even without such a worry the child (or the child’s own children and grandchildren) may well return to their religious heritage should they discover their true ancestry, this amounts to a pidyon shivuim type of situation. As opening the graves (to find them empty) is necessary in order to pressure the authorities to release just where the children really were sent,
I would like to add another argument. As these graves were done contrary to the consent of the appropriate relatives, they might not be better than a temporary grave, which indeed is subject to opening and moving.