Unbelievable: we are going back to the tradition of jewish buriel caves of 2000 years ago.. this might be a tourist attraction.. not a joke, read this:


Tunnel vision
By GAIL LICHTMAN

Jerusalem is running out of space to bury its dead. But if a group of eco-friendly visionaries have their way, we may yet get to have our environmental cake and eat it too – that is, bury our dead in dignity and still be able to preserve the city's green spaces.

The city has three Jewish cemeteries for its residents – the Mount of Olives, Sanhedria and Har Hamenuhot, as well as Mount Herzl for military dead and leaders of the nation.

Sanhedria is now nearly full. There is only limited space on the Mount of Olives, and Har Hamenuhot is also nearing capacity.

The city has known about this problem for almost 20 years. Various plans have been proposed but they all fell by the wayside due to planning or access problems. A plan for a new cemetery near Ma'aleh Adumim was nixed because of restrictions on planning beyond the Green Line.

At the end of June, the municipal planning and building committee approved Municipal Building Plan 5476A, which is a plan to expand Har Hamenuhot in Givat Shaul by some 579 dunams into land held by the Israel Lands Administration. This would add space for some 150,000 burial plots – enough to meet the city's needs for at least the next 30 years.

Opponents of the plan point out that the expansion will be at the expense of some 200 dunams of the Jerusalem Forest (approximately 10 percent of the forest's area) and will also include destruction of an ancient Roman road archeological site.

Instead, they propose that Jerusalemites be buried in large, multistory tunnels, not unlike road tunnels, located under the existing cemetery.

The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) organized a discussion of this idea in May, with the participation of environmentalists, government officials, municipal representatives, architects, engineers and burial society officials. It has also issued a brochure to help further the idea.

"The Jerusalem Forest is in danger," says Marik Stern, coordinator of public activities for Shomera, an independent, nonprofit organization of Har Nof residents and others concerned about improving the quality of life.

"This type of burial does not take additional land. We live in a country where land is in short supply. Burial underground is the environmentally correct option."

The idea for burial in underground tunnels has been around for many years, notes Dr. Amir Eidelman, director of the Center for Environmental Policy Studies at JIIS.

"We are fast running out of room to bury our dead and this offers unlimited places as well as a way to maintain sustainable development. But it can be implemented only in rocky, hilly areas. That is why Har Hamenuhot is ideal."

Har Hamenuhot is also ideal because the kind of rock underneath can be used for concrete and gravel. Tunnel construction involves creating debris, which then poses a disposal problem. The debris from tunnels under Har Hamenuhot could be sold for building material, solving the disposal problem and offsetting some of the construction cost.

An engineering study, carried out by Dr. Zali Polishook, a tunnel geologist, has determined that from an engineering point of view, building the tunnels is feasible. "We can add an additional story to our country," Polishook says.

Over the past decade, a number of road tunnels have been constructed in the Jerusalem area. These projects have given local engineers and construction companies the knowledge and ability to build sophisticated tunnels.

The project entails construction of multistory tunnels underground, sort of like ancient catacombs but with modern ventilation, lighting, elevators, ramps and even tastefully decorated waiting areas. The tunnels, 15 meters wide and seven meters high, would be large enough not to be claustrophobic. They could be built in stages, starting with one story and then adding others as needed. There would be conventional burial in rows along the floors, similar to what is offered today, as well as burial in niches in the walls. Families would be able to choose the kind of burial they prefer.

ancient jewish cemetary tunnel in herzel mount, jerusalem, second temple period

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Beit She'arim cemetary tunnels "Jewish necropolis"

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During the Second Temple period, Bet She'arim was one of many small Jewish settlements in Lower Galilee. After the Bar-Kochva Revolt (132-135 C.E.), the center of Jewish life passed from Judea to Galilee. The Sanhedrin - the highest judical and ecclesiastical council of the Jews in the Land of Israel - wandered from Yavneh to Shfaram, from Shfaram to Usha and about a century after the destruction of the Temple from Usha to Bet She'arim.
The sages of the Sanhedrin recognized that after the destruction of the Temple Jewish life needed a new center of gravity to withstand the rigors of a life without a national center. For the nation was now scattered, with the vast majority of Jews living in lands of Exile.
The sages of the Sanhedrin wanted to formulate a code of behavior which would tell a Jew living inside or outside of Israel how to live his life at every moment. While there had previously been guidelines for living a life According to the word of God as expressed in the Torah, traditions had varied among different groups in different places. This was largely due to the fact that the legal tradition had been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, and had been subject to human forgetfulness and change. The leaders of the new Sanhedrin felt that there was now a need to develop a unitary code that would indicate to every community how to live a distinctively Jewish life.

And so the Sages sat and discussed everything they could think of that had a bearing on how to live a Jewish life. Their discussions continued for generations. And during the course of these endless conversations which involved countless ideas and opinions, the central ideas of Judaism developed and changed, and a new concept of peoplehood began to emerge.


At the end of the second century, the Nasi, the acknowledged head of the Sanhedrin, was Rabbi Judah. He recorded the intricate discussions swirling around him, categorized and ordered the comments, decided who won each argument, and thus compiled the Mishnah.
The Mishnah is a huge work comprised of six books which cover hundreds of subjects, ranging from how to sow your field to how to kosher your chicken, how to educate your child to how to treat your wife! Drawing on thousands of examples, the Mishnah tried to set a standard for Jewish life which could be led by every Jew without the Temple. At first, the Mishnah was passed down orally, but later it was written down in order to guarantee that the law remain uniform. Despite this commitment to writing, the Mishnah, and the Talmud which expanded it, are still called the "Oral Law," a reference to how they originally developed.

The Mishnah, the record of the decisions that were finally taken by the Sages, formed the basis of the strictly defined Code of Law the acceptance of which became the hallmark of Jewish life for the next period of Jewish survival.

Because illness Rabbi Judah was forced to relocate in Sepphoris and the Sanhedrin went with him. When he died in (220 CE), his body was returned to Bet She'arim for burial. After his dead, the city acquired reputation throughout th Jewish world, and many preferred to be buried in the neighborhood of the great and famous Rabbi Juda.





The tombs at Beit She'arim have many inscriptions in various languages, principally Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These inscriptions tell us something about the lives of the people buried here; for instance, they were teachers, priests, bankers, goldsmiths, government officials, perfumers, and, of course, rabbis.

Belt She'arim was a burying place for Jews from all over Israel, as well as from such far-flung Diaspora communities as Tadmor (Palmyra) and Antioch in Syria; Sidon, Tyre and Beirut in Lebanon; and cities in Northern Mesopotamia and Southern Arabia. One inscription reads:

Here they lie Atio the daughter of Rabbi Gamliel son of Nehemia who died a virgin at the age of twenty two years and Ation the daughter of Rabbi Juda son of Rabbi Gamliel that died at the age of nine years and six month, may their position be [with the righteous]

Rabbi Juda son of Rabbi Gamliel may identify as the Rabbi of the third generation of the Amoraïm, (The Sages of the Talmud) who was the Patriarch in who's time the Roman Emperor Diocletian (248-306 CE) visited the Land of Israel.

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scary!