Israel Repositions Soldier’s Grave After Dispute With Rabbis

JERUSALEM —  A Russian immigrant soldier who had been buried at the edge of a military cemetery because rabbis decreed he was not Jewish was reinterred in the center of the graveyard Monday.

Lev Peisakhov, 20, was shot to death Aug. 6 by Palestinian guerrillas in the occupied West Bank and buried on the edge of a cemetery in the northern town of Bet Shean.

But his lonely burial site angered secular Israelis who resent the tight control that ultra-Orthodox rabbis have over many aspects of day-to-day life, including marriage, divorce and burials.

Israel’s Law of Return, which gives automatic entry to all Jews, loosely defines a Jew as someone who has converted to Judaism or whose mother was Jewish.

But the ultra-Orthodox rabbis ruled that Peisakhov could not be Jewish because his mother, Svetlana, is Christian.

Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak said he will make sure the mistake is not repeated. A special army commission is investigating.