A statement declaring that postmortem dissections are “forbidden by the Torah in any manner whatsoever,” was issued here today by Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Isser Unterman, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim, members of the Chief Rabbinate Council and fifty other Israeli religious leaders.
Another statement signed by 15 doctors called on the Knesset to prevent passage of a pending bill that would give the hospital the right to decide on performing a postmortem. The statement said that an autopsy performed against the wishes of the deceased is “a great infringement of individual liberty.”
Meanwhile an anonymous group calling itself “The League of Immigrants and Tourists of the United States and Europe” has distributed posters here threatening to call on “outside elements” to put pressure on the Israeli Government to bar autopsies. A demonstration against autopsies was held here last week by over 100 religious zealots in front of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
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