When I was working at the site in 1994, however, I found the situation had changed dramatically. There were violent demonstrations at the site in which about 40 people were detained. Several people were hurt, and one ended up in the hospital. Today, no rabbi or yeshiva student would participate in a dig involving tombs. Indeed, they would not be involved in any archeological excavation.
Archaeologists are now more impure than the dead.
Archaeologists are worse than Satan. In the early days of the state of Israel, and even before, archaeology was considered a search for roots, a justification for our being here. For General Moshe Dayan and many other national leaders, some of whom helped found the Israel Exploration Society, it was a kind of spiritual hobby. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, visited many of the digs. The second chief of staff of the Israeli army, Yigael Yadin, became Israel's most famous archaeologist.