The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, May 12, 1982-Page 7
Israel provides
funeral service
for ancient dead
NAHAL HEVER, Israel (AP)-
Israel gave an elaborate military
funeral Tuesday for ancient bones iden-
tified with Bar-Kochba's revolt against
Roman rule, in a ceremony that pitted
patriotic orators against derisive
demonstrators wearing foil helmets
and bedsheets.
While Prime Minister Menachem
Begin and Israel's chief rabbis praised
the heroism in the revolt that cost an
estimated 580,000 Jewish lives, the ar-
chaeologist who found the bones
boycotted the funeral and 30 protesters
mocked the idea by dressing as Bar-
Kochba's warriors.
ISRAELI soldiers seized placards
calling the funeral "a disgrace to
Israel."
One protester shouted, "This
ceremony contradicts almost every
principle of sanity that this country was
conducted on in the past. Now madness
has taken over and this madness makes
soldiers beat civilians."
The protesters, who had hiked three
hours from a nearby kibbutz to the
remote site, did not disrupt the burial
itself. It was held on the bare and rocky
rim of a deep canyon called Nahal
Hever in the Judean Desert, near the
Dead Sea and within sight of the caves
where the bones were found.
ABOUT 20 dignitaries, including
President Yitzhak Navon and members
of Begin's cabinet, were taken by
helicopter to Nahal Hever.
Military rabbis chanted prayers, an
honor guard fired rifle volleys over the
mass grave and eulogies were given by
Begin and the country's two chief rab-
bis. The ceremony cost an estimated
$250,000, sparking further criticism in
Israel's hard-pressed economic
situation.
Bar-Kochba led a revolt against the
Roman Emperor Hadrian in the years
132-135, establishing a brief indepen-
dent rule that was the last Jewish ad-
ministration in the Holy Land until the
modern Jewish state was declared in
1948.
YIGAEL YADIN, one of Israel's
leading archaeologists, found letters
from the Bar-Kochba era in a cave in
Nahal Hever. He also found 19
skeletons, and they were interred
Tuesday along with parts of six other
skeletons discovered in a nearby
cavern.
Some Israeli analysts are skeptical of
lionizing the Bar-Kochba rebels. The
rebellion cost many lives and ended
with the Jews being dispersed away
from the Holy Land for over 1,800
years, these analysts say.
Begin's eulogy addressed the
remains in the four flag-drapped coffins
as "our glorious fathers" and praised
their battle. The victorious Romans
erased the Jewish names for the land-
Judea and Israel-and called it "Syria
et Palestina," Begin said.
NOW, THE prime minister said,
"Israel and Judea are reborn, carried
by the judges of Israel from the four
corners of the earth. Our sons have
returned. We have liberated all of the
western land of Israel. We have
redeemed Jerusalem and united it into
one city for generations."
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who
pressed for the state funeral, said
Israel was paying "a holy moral debt"
to the rebels.
Norwe anAP Photo
The Hjemkomst, a 76-foot-long wood replica of a Viking ship, sails
majestically out of Knife River, Minn. at the start of its two-month voyage
around the Great Lakes and across the Atlantic to Norway.
Bond ratng still uncertain
despite tax hike approval
Continued from Page 1) der cut next week but was not commit-
ted to any particular reductions.
James- DeSana of Wyandotte, Thomas On previous attempts, the Senate had
Guastello of St. Clair and Dana Wilson fallen between ten votes and one vote
of Madison Heights-agreed to switch short of the 20 needed to approve the
their votes to "yes." measure, despite intense lobbying by
Cheers resounded in the Senate Milliken and his aides and, at one point,
chamber as the three critical votes ap- a personal visit by the governor to the
peared on the Senate ballot board. Only floor of the chamber.
20 votes were needed for passage of the THE HOUSE had previously passed
measure. the bill on the narrowest possible
Guastello and DeSana wanted margin, but defeat in the Senate had
Milliken to make $50 million in cuts required consideration by a House-
from a specific list of programs, in- Senate conference committee and
cluding county road patrol aid, India necessitated a second House vote.
scholarships and the Martin Luther House Speaker Bobby Crim said,
King state holiday. Milliken said he "This is a day to be glad we were
would issue a $50 millionexecutive or- responsible."
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