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Journalism of Courage
JERUSALEM, AUG 17: Investigators reportedly opened several graves of Yemenite Jewish babies and found them to be empty — a discovery that might support claims that Yemenite children were taken from their parents for adoption decades ago.
For years, Yemenite activists have claimed that hundreds of babies declared dead were actually given to adoptive parents of European descent. If the claims are true, it could further sour relations between Middle Eastern and European Jews in Israel.
The four graves at Tel Aviv’s Givat Shaul cemetery were opened last Wednesday as part of an official investigation, with a rabbi and family members present.
Wooden signs over the empty graves bore the names Ruthie Babu, Ruthie Cohen, Reuven Rafaelo and Moshe Mishraki, Israel TV reported on Sunday. All had been hospitalised when only a few months old. Their parents never saw them again, nor did they see a body or a death certificate.
“Now there is no doubt that this was an affair of planned fraud in which funerals were staged and evidence was falsified,” said Ora Shifris, a spokesman for the Yemenite families.
Hundreds of children disappeared during the mass immigration of Yemenite Jews in the early 1950s, when the immigrants were housed in tent camps. Camp officials and medical staff denied any wrongdoing, saying there was chaos in the camps, where many babies were sickly and died.
