Egypt Mulls Status of Jewish Tomb

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Protecting an ancient Jewish tomb in the Nile Delta is a matter of history - not religion or politics, Egypt's top antiquities official said Saturday. He said he would appeal a court ruling striking the grave from a list of protected monuments.

An administrative court in Alexandria ruled Thursday that a government decision in January to register the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hatzeira as a monument was a ``serious violation of the law.''

Gaballah Ali Gaballah, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told The Associated Press he would appeal that decision. The council has 60 days to challenge the ruling.

``We do not differentiate between antiquities. An antiquity is an Egyptian one, we do not ask what its religion is,'' he said. ``I won't speak about politics. We are just committed to the law.''

Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hatzeira died in 1880 in Damanhour, 90 miles northwest of Cairo, on his way from Morocco to what is now Israel. According to tradition, three times his followers tried to move his tomb, and three times heavy storms prevented them.

Damanhour lawyer Mustafa Raslan has sought for years to stop a yearly pilgrimage of Jews who revere Abu Hatzeira. He called the pilgrimages an offense to public morality.

``I filed a number of cases to remove the tomb, hand over the remains to Israel and stop these rotten festivities,'' Raslan said in a telephone interview Saturday.

On top of Raslan's efforts, the explosions of Palestinian-Israeli violence - and Egyptians' staunch support of the Palestinians - have fueled the controversy surrounding the tomb.

The court denied Raslan's request to have Abu Hatzeira's remains removed from Egypt. But it did ban the annual pilgrimage, saying it harms ``the feelings of Muslims and Copts,'' Egypt's Christian minority.

Raslan said he feared politics will prompt higher courts to overturn the decision, saying the government would evoke the Camp David agreement that led to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Egyptian officials have repeatedly rebuffed requests to ban the pilgrimage. Under Egyptian law, monuments registered with the antiquities council are eligible for restoration, protection and regulation of visiting hours and routines such as the Abu Hatzeira pilgrimage.

Antiquities chief Gaballah said it is up to his council to determine which monuments can be registered - and that there was no reason to disqualify Abu Hatzeira's tomb.

``We have a Jewish community in Egypt. This tomb is 120 years old,'' Gaballah said.

Fifteen Jewish monuments are registered in Egypt, said Abdullah Attar, head of the antiquities department responsible for post-pharaonic monuments. Attar said his department has not yet been notified of the court ruling to strike Abu Hatzeira's tomb from the monuments' list.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in Cairo said the court decision had not been officially delivered to the embassy.

Egypt has one of the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world. Its Jewish-related monuments include the Cairo synagogue, where the 12th century scholar and physician Maimonides supposedly worshipped, and whose geniza (discards room) yielded, about 120 years ago, a wealth of very early medieval Bible and Talmudic manuscripts whose value is comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The synagogue is still in use although by a small congregation.

I think it's time to build a synagogue in Amman.

What would Egypt do if the U.S. closed down the Washington DC Islamic mosque and kept Moslem residents from visiting?

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