Chabad envoy in Madagascar secures Jewish burial after frantic search for missing location

Chabad emissary in Madagascar, Rabbi Nimrod Zuta, carried out a rushed operation to ensure that an elderly Jewish man who died on the island would receive a proper Jewish burial. The man’s family in Israel knew he had died, but they did not know exactly where he was, and contacted Zuta after searching online for a Chabad house through social media.

Zuta said the death notice reached him on Saturday night through a relative in Israel. He explained that Madagascar is about 25 times larger than Israel, and the main obstacle was that the non-Jewish person responsible for the burial initially refused to cooperate with a Jewish funeral. Zuta said he spent hours persuading him, stressing the religious importance of burial according to Jewish law, and eventually managed to secure cooperation and a two-hour delay so he could reach the site in Antananarivo, the capital.

He said the burial could not be moved from the non-Jewish cemetery, but the arrangement still worked because the grave was separated by “ten handbreadths” from the surrounding cemetery. Since those handling the body did not know Jewish burial practice, they had used body-preservation material, and there was also no ash available. After consulting another rabbi, Zuta was told that abroad it was enough to arrange for earth under the body. He quickly organized two other Jews from Antananarivo to take part in the burial, and they recited Psalms and Mishnayot, along with the declaration “Yehi Adoneinu Moreinu Verabeinu Melech HaMashiach Leolam Va’ed.”

Zuta called the experience an extraordinary sense of mission, saying it was the kind of task that would not happen unless he “lie on the line” for it. He described the day as exhausting and said he had not slept after receiving the nighttime message. The family member in Israel, he added, sent emotional messages and cried with relief after learning the burial had succeeded.