Just weeks before the Yomim Noraim, the Religious Services Ministry announced Tuesday that holy sites across Eretz Yisroel are set to close to visitors at the end of August, after the Supreme Court froze funding needed to continue their operation, Ynet reports.

The closures would take effect just a week and a half before Rosh Hashanah, during a period when tens of thousands traditionally travel to kivrei tzaddikim and other holy sites for Selichos and tefillah ahead of the Yomim Noraim.

Religious Services Ministry Director-General Yehuda Avidan warned in a letter to Yisrael Deri, deputy director-general of the National Center for the Development of Holy Places, that without an approved source of funding, the organization cannot continue operating. Avidan said that unless a solution is found by the end of August, operations at the national center, including at the various holy sites, will be halted at the beginning of September.

The crisis follows a Supreme Court decision last week freezing funding transfers approved by the Knesset Finance Committee for religious needs and Chareidi education networks. Justice Alex Stein cited procedural flaws in the committee’s discussion and ruled that the transfers should remain frozen until the matter can be considered by a three-justice panel.

Among the frozen allocations is NIS 33 million designated for the operation and management of major holy sites, including Kever Rochel Imeinu in Beis Lechem, the tziyun of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron, Kever Shmuel Hanavi and Kever Dovid Hamelech in Yerushalayim.

Unless the funding dispute is resolved in the coming weeks, the sites could be shuttered precisely as Klal Yisroel enters the Yomim Noraim season and thousands prepare to visit them for tefillah.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)