A group of Israeli volunteers traveled to Egypt on Monday as part of a covert mission to rehabilitate Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira’s kever, which has been neglected for years.
The work at Damanhur was carried out in collaboration with Egyptian officials, with volunteers cleaning the kever site and its perimeter, restoring damaged windows and repainting the tomb’s walls.
The repairs took several hours to complete, and came after Abuchatzeira’s family had lobbied Egyptian officials for several years to authorize the refurbishment.
The Abuchatzeira family hopes that Egyptian authorities will now be more accommodating of potential Israelis who visit the burial site once a year, a ritual that Egyptian officials banned in 2012 due to “moral offenses” allegedly perpetrated by Jewish visitors.
Following the restriction, former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt David Govrin was the first to visit the site in 2017, photographing the kever’s deplorable condition. JNS
Update: after reading about this here Egyptian authorities have arrested the volunteers