Monday, August 22, 2022

Dogs at the Bonyhad Orthodox cemetery

SUGGESTION FOR VISITORS TO GRAVES IN THE BONYHAD ORTHODOX CEMETERY

It is recommended to call the caretaker Mr. Jo'zsef Va'l +36 30 513-9596 ahead of planned visits to the cemetery and agree on a date and approximate time. This way he has time to assure there are no dogs at or near the grave sites. He said that he understands some Yiddish and can "teuch".

BACKGROUND  AND STATUS

It became increasingly apparent that the 14 dogs by the Bonyhad Orthodox cemetery are a significant problem.
Some or many of the dogs were thrown into the cemetery area and tMr. Va'l who lives alone is taking care of them.

Many visitors to graves are very uncomfortable in presence of so many dogs and some are afraid.

A basic fence was constructed a few months ago separating the section of graves from the large area where Mr. Va'l resides. It was initiated by a dedicated non-Jewish woman in Bonyhad: Beata Hetesi. She also worked on some of the construction.

Shlomo Singer and I contributed toward the construction.

 The fence was reinforced about 2 weeks ago to prevent the dogs from digging under it.

There are 2 gates on the fence.
If they are closed the fence seems to be able to perform its function.

Shlomo and I have been in frequent contact with the Jewish Community in Budapest (MAZSIHISZ) asking for their help to resolve the problem  of the dogs. They manage almost all Jewish cemeteries in Hungary and the 2 Bonyhad cemeteries are probably registered in their name. We were informed that they are unable to help due to financial and other constraints. They did make a financial contribution toward construction of the fence.

We also contacted the mayor and also the notary of Bonyad and received their response last week..

They are well aware of the problem and contacted many animal shelters nearby, in the Tolna province and elsewhere in Hungary.
Beata Hetesi has also been trying to find places with no avail.

There are no available places for the dogs in the cemetery.

The municipality is determined to change this, but it is expected to take time until places become available by new construction or vacation of currently occupied places.

We are in contact with MAZSIHISZ and are hoping that they and  the Bonyhad authorities  will join forces withto increase the chance of timely success.

Shlomo and I are also looking into having the female dogs sterilized to prevent the problem from getting worse.
Sterilization is free, but the prerequisite is that the dogs have a chip installed under their skin and be inoculated which costs about $30 per dog.

So far we don't know if the municipality would pay for all or part of this.

We also asked the leader of a large Christian group in Bonyhad if their members would be interested in adopting dogs. 
Should that be possible the magnitude of the problem would decrease.














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