The family of fallen Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Staff Sgt. David Bogdanovskyi, 19, who died in combat while fighting in Gaza last year, has been told to remove the man's headstone because it bears a Christian cross.
Israel's Defense Ministry told the family that the entire headstone for the deceased soldier has got to go because the IDF's chief rabbi decided that the "holiness" of the cemetery is harmed by the presence of the cross.
"By law, it is not permissible to place a cross or any other religious marker on a military headstone," the Ministry said about Israel's preference for law over grace.
"This is especially important in the Haifa military cemetery where fallen Jewish soldiers are also buried."
In other words, the cross is a stumbling block to devoted Jews who would rather it be out of sight and out of mind, which is why the family of the fallen soldier also has the option to exhume his body and rebury it outside the Haifa military cemetery.
(Related: Did you know that the IDF says it's okay to murder people, this after a report found that 75 percent of all journalists who died in 2023 while covering conflict zones were killed by the Israeli military?)
"David loved Israel from the bottom of his heart," says family
Bogdanovskyi's family say they received a letter from the Public Council of Commemoration of Fallen Soldiers in the Defense Ministry about removing the cross-emblazoned headstone, which is currently covered with a black cloth so as not to offend any Jewish observers.
The young soldier and several of his comrades were killed last December after an anti-tank guided missile struck a Namer-armored engineering vehicle they were traveling in through southern Gaza's Khan Younis area. Bogdanovskyi and his family emigrated from Ukraine to Israel in 2014.
In a Facebook post, Bogdanovskyi's mother defended her family's decision to imprint a cross on their soldier's headstone.
"David loved Israel from the bottom of his heart," his mother said. "The cross engraved on his headstone was an integral part of his personal identity and the faith in which he was raised."
According to the family, there are several other gravestones in the same cemetery that have crosses on them, so they are unsure why they are being singled out specifically.
"The family are crushed," a family member told Channel 12 news. "They cry non-stop and are in despair at the situation. They were told that if they don't take down the headstone, the grave would be moved."
Cemeteries are a unique jurisdiction in Israel, where issues like marriage, divorce, and burial are all governed by religious law rather than civil law. Cemeteries, in other words, fall under Pharisaical governance rather than civil governance.
Only since 2013 have non-Jewish soldiers even been allowed to be buried next to Jewish soldiers in military cemeteries. The Knesset passed a law that year stating:
"Any soldier who dies, including a soldier eligible for rights under Article 4(a) of the Law of Return, and whose relatives choose to bury him in a military cemetery, shall be buried in the plot and row, and directly alongside, the soldiers already buried in that plot."
According to The Times of Israel, the key phrase in that law is the part about soldiers who are eligible for immigration rights under Article 4(a) of the Law of Return; "that is, non-Jewish family members of Jews."
"In effect, the bill enables the burial of soldiers belonging to the 300,000-strong population of immigrants from the former Soviet Union – who came to Israel as family members of immigrating Jews even though they are not halachically Jewish – alongside Jewish soldiers."
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