FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Former Israeli underground fighter Haviv Schieber was buried in a simple pine casket after a Baptist service Thursday,ending two weeks of court battles over whether he would be eulogized as a Christian or a Jew.
A display of yellow and white spider mums lay atop the coffin, wrapped by a yellow ribbon with the inscription: 'Rejected in Life, Victorious in Death.'
'Haviv would have rejoiced with great Jewish drama and enthusiasm for all of the events of the last two weeks, except one,' the Rev. Dale Crowley told about 30 people who attended the service. 'This one today.'
Crowley, a Baptist minister, housed and cared for the ailing Schieber the last 2 years of his life, which ended Dec. 31 when he died of liver cancer at age 74. He said Schieber, a fervent anti-Zionist, was a converted Christian who loved controversy but disdained the formality of such a burial service.
Crowley was granted access to the body by court order Wednesday. The body was taken directly from the Arlington Hospital morgue to the service at Murphy's Funeral Home in Arlington Thursday morning.
The order by county Circuit Judge Benjamin Kendrick followed a ruling Monday by Kendrick that Schieber would be buried as a Christian.
A rabbi from Rockville, Md., representing Schieber's son in Israel, had fought to have the body buried in a Jewish ceremony.
After losing Monday's court battle, Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan refused to sign papers waiving his right under Virginia law to appeal within 30 days, saying he could not condone the Christian burial.
The hospital then refused to release the body before Wednesday's court order.
Kaplan's decision not to sign the waiver leaves open the chance for an appeal, which could lead to the exhumation of the body.
But Schieber's son, Daniel, reached in Tel Aviv, Israel, said he wanted his father buried and would not seek an appeal.
Some 30 mourners, mostly elderly friends of Schieber, remained at the snow-covered National Memorial Park in Falls Church until two cemetery workers lowered the casket into the ground at 12:35 p.m.
'Haviv Schieber is not in the casket. Haviv Schieber is in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ,' another Baptist preacher, the Rev. Steve King, told the gatherers. 'Yes, he was Jewish, but he was a believer in Jesus Christ.'
Schieber fled his Polish homeland to the Middle East in 1937, and joined the Jewish underground. He fought beside Menachem Begin to help found the state of Israel, and was the first mayor of the Israeli city of Beersheba.
He left Israel in 1959 because of his disenchantment with the Israeli government, and lived the rest of his life in the United States, working as a political activist opposed to Israeli policy.
Thursday's service was marked by little emotion, and one of Crowley's three adult daughters, who asked that her name not be used, said her family felt 'relief and joy' that the burial finally occurred.
