Council head threatens to 'cancel' Lag Ba'omer pilgrimage to Meron

Merom Hagalil regional council head Shlomo Levy is threatening to withhold the necessary permits for the annual Lag Ba'omer pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Meron on May 5-6.

"As the authority head, I am responsible for what takes place there, but in effect can't even put down a screw without permission from the religious trusts and various rabbis who run the place," Levy said.

Levy wants the area nationalized so that state authorities, rather than scattered religious ones, control the site. More than 1 million people visit the area every year - about half of them on Lag Ba'omer, said Levy, setting the Meron mountain in the North aglow with the bonfires that are customary on the Jewish holiday.

Regional council officials sent warning letters to peddlers on Meron on Sunday, giving them a week to remove their stalls from the mountain or have their stalls forcibly removed. The council also informed the administrators of Bar Yochai's grave, which is classified as a holy site, that it would close down the area if they did not present permits by the end of the week for holding a mass outdoor event. The necessary permits include those from the fire department and emergency medical services; a construction expert is also supposed to assess the stability of the dome above the gravesite, on top of which hundreds of people dance on Lag Ba'omer eve.

"There must be a state authority here that administers the site," said Levy. "They have to do here what they did at the Western Wall."

The National Center for Holy Sites, a government organization that was transferred to the Tourism Ministry when the Religious Affairs Ministry was dismantled in 2004, is supposed to be responsible for Bar Yochai's gravesite. Then-tourism minister Isaac Herzog announced three months ago that the center would undergo major changes, but Herzog has since left the ministry and it is not clear what, if any, changes will now be made.

Bar Yochai, a Talmudic sage who is said to have hidden in a cave near Meron following the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans around 135 C.E., is traditionally said to have written the Jewish mystical work the Zohar. Lag Ba'omer is thought to be the anniversary of his death.

The grave of Bar Yochai, a student of the great sage Rabbi Akiva, is one of about 20 places classified as Jewish holy sites in Israel.