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Illustrative: Leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish chassidic dynasty of Toldot Avraham visits Meron, Northern Israel, on May 25, 2020. (David Cohen/FLASH90)
The deadly stampede in which 45 ultra-Orthodox pilgrims were crushed to death at Mount Meron on Thursday night was not the first safety-related disaster to occur there during Lag B’Omer celebrations. Exactly 110 years ago, 11 people were killed, and more than 40 were wounded, when a balcony railing collapsed at the holy site.
On May 15, 1911, Lag B’Omer night, at the gravesite of the second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, at least 100 people fell some seven meters from a balcony after the railing surrounding it collapsed.
“I am responsible, but responsibility does not mean blame,” he said.
“The disaster that happened this year could have happened any other year,” Ohana said, noting that in fact the number of revelers at the holy site was far lower this year than in previous years. He said the scope of the tragedy went “far beyond the police.”
Ohana also gave full backing to the police, saying that “the whole chain of command did its job” ahead of and during the incident, including the police chief and district commander.
The minister added that he had visited the wounded over the weekend and spoken to relatives of victims, and described the pain of hearing their stories.