Decision to move rocket-resistant Ashkelon ER may be illegalThe article covers recent events thoroughly, although I can find nothing in it that explicitly addresses or justifies the headline.
By Dan Even and Mazal Mualem (Haaretz)
Tags: Ashkelon, Israel health
By a single vote, the cabinet approved Sunday the demand of Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) to move the planned bomb-proof emergency room of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, after ancient burial grounds were discovered in the original site.
Building the emergency room elsewhere in the hospital complex will cost an extra NIS 120 million and delay completion by two years. In response to the decision, Dr. Eitan Hai-Am, director general of the Health Ministry, resigned, saying that the decision "is likely to place lives at risk."
The decision was heavily criticized and the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that professional evaluations of the burial grounds will take place over the coming month, "and if it emerges that the graves do not belong to Jews, the matter will be returned to the cabinet for more discussions."
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Critics of the decision noted that in addition to the extra cost, the delay in the construction of a bomb-proof medical ward when security considerations in the area near the Gaza Strip remain high, will create logistical problems in case of emergencies.
Moreover, the critics argued, the government was motivated in its decision by keeping the coalition together, and not the security and health of the citizens of the country.
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Then there's the halakhic question:
Bar-Ilan professor: No halachic ban on moving remainsBackground here.
By BEN HARTMAN
22/03/2010 02:23
According to Dr. Jeffrey Woolf, Halacha includes procedures for transporting human remains.
There is no halachic reason to change the site for the fortified emergency room at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center due to the presence of ancient bones there, even if they are Jewish, an expert on Jewish law at Bar-Ilan University told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, the cabinet decided that the bones would not be moved, and that the emergency room would be built at a different site.
According to Dr. Jeffrey Woolf, a senior lecturer in the university’s Talmud department and director of the school’s institute for the study of post-Talmudic Jewish law, Halacha includes procedures for transporting human remains and does not contain an absolute prohibition on such transport.
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