The Disciplinary Court of Israel’s Civil Service Commission suspended a grave digger in the Nahariya cemetery for desecrating the cemetery and the deceased who are buried in it, Reshet Bet Radio reported on Wednesday.
The employee of the Nahariya Religious Council was convicted based on his confession as part of a plea deal that, among other things, on several occasions, he shot videos in the cemetery in which he disrespected the dignity of the deceased and his role as a cemetery employee, and distributed the videos to others on social networks.
You probably want to know what was in those despicable videos. Here goes:
The undertaker recorded himself lying in an open grave, holding flowers in his hand and singing “I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah… the resurrection of the dead is nigh.”
He recorded himself entering the cemetery’s eulogy plaza, knocking on a frying pan and calling out, “Good morning, get up to worship the Creator, today with God’s help you will have sumptuous shakshuka, raise your hand if you want one.”
Shakshuka is a Moroccan dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion, and garlic, and spiced with cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper.
In the same video, the gravedigger approached the stone surface in the plaza, where he had laid out the ingredients for making shakshuka, calling, “Dr. Shakshuka is me.”
In another video he recorded himself presenting a recipe for salmon and vegetables and salmon, also with the ingredients laid out on the eulogy plaza stone surface, and announcing: “Salmon fish with the aroma of a cemetery.”
And so on.
The disciplinary court ruled that the actions of the accused were reprehensible and that it is hard to believe that they were done by a sane civil servant.
I’ll let you work out the concept of a sane civil servant on your own.
The employee expressed remorse for his actions and told the court he was ashamed and that he had been suffering mental anguish.
The court accepted the plea deal because of the employee’s extremely difficult financial situation and the fact that his employment had already been terminated and ruled that he must be severely reprimanded and barred from the civil service for three years.
The Ministry of Religious Services said the plea agreement was too lenient.
One wonders if the gravedigger could continue to entertain the dead in his unique fashion if only he had not posted it on social networks.
