The issue of cemeteries in Israel and around the world is a charged issue. While most cemeteries in Israel receive the dedicated care of members of the Hevra Kadisha and the authorities, unfortunately, there are quite a few cemeteries that suffer from disgraceful neglect.
This was brought to the attention of JDN News, by a Yeshivah student who visited the place to pray and was horrified by the terrible extent of this neglect, with dozens of graves covered with thorns and thistles growing on the site and some of the tombs in complete decay.
In a conversation with JDN, he laments “For a long time I wanted to pray at the tomb of Rabbi Aharon Azriel, whose teachings we study. I was really horrified by the neglect, there are graves that are not accessible due to clumps of bushes that grew on them, some graves are simply broken because of trees that grew close together. It’s a shame that our sages resting places are in such condition.”
In a conversation we had with another person who visits the place occasionally, he wants to point out that limited access to the cemetery is contributing to the situation “the cemetery is only open on Mondays and Thursdays between 08:00 and 12:00 in the morning, so the place is only open eight hours a week which makes it difficult for people to visit, and therefore few are aware of the grave condition of the place.”
It should be noted that among the Rabbis and Torah scholars buried in the Jewish cemetery in Jaffa are: Rabbi Aharon Azriel, who served as Rosh Yeshiva of the Kabbalists ‘Beit El’ in Jerusalem. The Gaon Rabbi Yehuda Margoza, chief rabbi of Jaffa. The Gaon Rabbi Yosef Raphael Ben-Nun, one of the sages of Jerusalem and later served as the rabbi of Jaffa, and many more.
Below are some images that show the extent of neglect:
