Fire damages controversial crematorium
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's only commercial crematorium, viewed by Orthodox Jews as an abomination, was severely damaged in a suspicious fire Wednesday, just hours after its secret location was revealed in a religious newspaper.
Israeli Internet news sites quoted fire brigade officials as saying signs of forced entry were found at the facility in central Israel, raising suspicions the evening blaze was set deliberately.
The "Aley Shalehet" crematorium opened two years ago, offering what its Web site describes as a "dignified choice" of funerals for Jews, who are buried in the Holy Land in accordance with Orthodox tradition in shrouds rather than in coffins.
Its owners provided potential customers with a telephone contact number but kept the crematorium's location secret for fear that ultra-Orthodox groups would try to damage it.
Ritual Orthodox Jewish law bans cremation. For some in Israel, the practice conjures up images of the ovens in which the bodies of Jews killed in Nazi death camps were burned.
Photos on the news sites showed serious damage to the crematorium, situated in a rural community.
Other photos taken earlier at the site, and published in an ultra-Orthodox newspaper that revealed its location, showed members of a religious burial organization long opposed to the facility standing outside the crematorium.
The head of the burial society denied any responsibility for the fire, but told reporters: "I assume that after the release (of the photos), there were people who could not ignore the debasement of the dead, and I applaud them."
