A 43-year-old blind Orthodox Jewish man, Moshe Lefkowitz, is suing a hospital in a Chicago suburb for cremating the leg its doctors amputated instead of keeping it so it could be buried in a traditional Jewish burial as required by Jewish law and as he allegedly requested.
Orthodox Man Sues Hospital, Rabbi, Over Cremation Of Amputated Leg
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A 43-year-old blind Orthodox Jewish man, Moshe Lefkowitz, is suing a hospital in a Chicago suburb for cremating the leg its doctors amputated instead of keeping it so it could be buried in a traditional Jewish burial as required by Jewish law and as he allegedly requested.
According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Lefkowitz had his left leg amputated below the knee in March 2011 at Skokie Hospital and says he told the hospital’s medical staff and a rabbi working as the hospital chaplain that he wanted the leg to be saved so it could be properly buried.
Rabbi Yona Reiss, the chief judge at the Chicago Rabbinical Council’s beit din (religious court), explained why it is important to preserve an amputated limb and bury it – albeit in a low-key ceremony.
"There's always the idea that it's nice for a person to keep all their parts together so that when the Messiah comes and there's a resurrection of the dead, the individual will have all his individual parts located within close proximity," Reiss told the Chicago Tribune.
The hospital claims Lefkowitz signed consent forms two separate times that gave the hospital permission to dispose of the limb.
Lefkowitz claims that he was unable to see the forms he signed, and that a nurse told him all he was signing was consent for the surgery.
He sued the Skokie Hospital, its owner, and the rabbi in Cook County Court in 2013 for more than $100,000.
The lawsuit was dismissed, but that dismissal was reversed by a county appeals court in July, and his case has been sent back to county court for trial.
On appeal, the hospital asserted that Lefkowitz should not be allowed to sue the rabbi for what it categorized as "clergy malpractice."
"There is no place for Plaintiff's religious contentions in the civil court system," the hospital's attorneys argued.
Lefkowitz is no stranger to controversy.
He, his 70-year-old father Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz, and his 38-year-old brother Levi are all awaiting trial felony theft charges.
The Lefkowitz trio allegedly stole more than $10,000 in donations from the Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation when Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz was the synagogue’s rabbi.
Each Lefkowitz is reportedly facing two counts of felony theft and one count of running a continuing financial criminal enterprise.
Their attorney attributed the charges to an internal political struggle in the synagogue and professed his clients’ innocence.
"I truly believe that they didn't act unjustly," he reportedly said.