Will This Year’s Lag BaOmer Be Different Than All Other Years?

YERUSHALAYIM
Meron on Lag BaOmer. (Meir Vaknin/Flash90, File)

MK Rabbi Yisrael Eichler (UTJ), who heads the committee in charge of organizing the Lag BaOmer hillula in Meron, and Deputy Finance Minister Rabbi Yitzhak Cohen (Shas), met with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon in order to find a solution to the parking and transportation difficulties in the area on Lag BaOmer.

“We need to enlarge the traffic circle, add dozens of dunams to the old parking lot, and add more buses,” Rabbi Eichler said. “It is unacceptable that the police have to block Jews who want to visit the holy tziyun in Meron, because of transportation or safety problems.

“We need to use all available resources to allow Jews who want to visit Meron, to do so. This is the second largest tourist site in Israel.

“Jews come from all over the world to visit Meron, and the government must prepare appropriately, both for Lag BaOmer and for the rest of the year.”

Kahlon asked the Israel Lands Authority and those in charge of the site to make a plan and present it to the government. This, he said, would help the government appropriate the required areas to aid travel to and from Meron on Lag BaOmer.

“We will do everything we can to make the site more accessible to those wishing to daven at Kever of the Rashbi,” Kahlon said, adding that the site “is a place close to his heart.”

Kahlon also asked Rabbi Cohen to ensure the site received the funding it needed prior to Lag BaOmer, and Rabbi Cohen later held a meeting with Oded Plus, Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance and the Director General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, approving an increase in the traditional Lag BaOmer budget to NIS 14 million.

This is the largest budget ever allocated to the Lag BaOmer hillula in Meron.

Rabbi Cohen said that “the special importance of this holy event, in which hundreds of thousands of people from Israel and the world gather for the celebration of Rashbi, requires special preparation.

“The new budget took into account the security arrangements, and the improvement of parking lots and access roads.”

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