Proper burial for all of Israel’s fallen soldiers

Two and a half years ago I wrote an article about the case of Private Evgeny Tuluzko, an IDF soldier who died while serving his country:

Private Evgeny Tuluzko is buried in the military graveyard on Mount Herzl, area A, plot 23, row 1, grave 2. He died in February during basic training, and when Israel celebrated its Memorial Day, on April 9, he was the latest of its soldiers to have fallen.

It is customary on that holiday for the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces to place a flag on the grave of its newest dead. Yet this year, Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz honored the tomb not of Tuluzko but of Shlomo Nitzani, who died last October. Nitzani was a lieutenant colonel and a hero, while Tuluzko was a simple soldier. More relevant still: Nitzani was Jewish, and Tuluzko was not.

The outcry from the Israeli public was significant, and several legislators decided to put an end to this habit of burying soldiers whose Jewishness is in doubt – IDF rabbinate rules – separately.

The IDF and Israel's Defense Ministry understood that this could be trouble. While many Israelis believe that all soldiers who fight side by side should be also buried side by side, there are also many observant Israelis that would not agree to an arrangement that, in their view, contradicts Halacha, the Jewish law.

The result was a prompt negotiation. On one side, MK Elazar Stern, a former General, and on the other hand the Defense Ministry, headed by Minister Moshe Yaalon. And, soon enough, an understanding was achieved:

Under a proposed Israel Defense Forces guideline, soldiers who are not Jewish according to Jewish law would be buried in the same section as their Jewish comrades in arms, but in a different row. The agreement on the proposal between Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and lawmaker Elazar Stern of the Hatnua party was reported Sunday in the Israeli media.

That was two and a half years ago. Time flies. And this morning the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot reported (Hebrew) that the Minister of Defense finally signed the new set of rules that will govern the burial of IDF soldiers whose Jewishness is in doubt – namely, the soldiers that the rabbinate does not recognize as Jewish.

The rules are simple: all soldiers (except for soldiers who are Muslim, Druze or Christian and have their own cemeteries) will lie together. Same areas, same plots, same lines. The only caveat to the rule is that when a non-Jewish soldier (according to rabbinate definitions – not all of which are acceptable to all Israelis) is buried alongside a Jewish soldier, a distance of about two meters will be kept between the two graves – that is the equivalent of the halachic “Arbah Amot” (four Amoth – a distance measurement). This is Halachicaly acceptable to the rabbinate and socially acceptable to Israelis.

When two and a half years ago I asked Stern if he was pleased with the proposed compromise, he told me that it isn’t ideal but that it reflects “the complicated nature of Israeli society.” His answer still stands. In fact, he told Yediot Daily the exact same thing in response to the latest, hopefully last, development in this story.