In a surprising move, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Sunday approved a bill that ends the current situation whereby cadavers who passed away on Shabbat are removed only on Saturday night, in accordance with halakha, News 1 reported. The cabinet committee’s support for the bill, submitted by MK Merav Michaeli (Zionist Camp – Labor), Ilan Gilon (Meretz) and others on the left is bizarre, considering the Netanyahu cabinet’s signed foundation understandings regarding religion and the state, because it poses serious problems in terms of Shabbat observance.
The current protocol when a Jewish person dies away from the hospital, at night, on Shabbat or during a Jewish holiday—outside the normal work schedule of the Hevra Kadisha, Israel’s official Jewish burial society—the relatives of the departed who don’t wish to keep the body at home must pay for the removal out-of-pocket and are not entitled to a refund.
The bill compels the burial societies that receive their funding from the state to provide transport services within three hours of receiving the request, even if the death occurred on Shabbat.
The bill also proposes that the provider of transport services may not charge any fee at all of the family of the departed or from any other source except the authorized manager of the cemetery where the departed is to be buried, nor can the transport provider condition its service on the relative’s buying any other service, such as producing or distributing death announcements.
At this point, the ministerial committee has approved the bill for an initial reading by the Knesset without attaching any conditions to the original text. Unless the religious parties appeal it, the law will start its enactment process shortly.
