Talmud Does Not Prohibit Dissection of Jewish Bodies Antisemitic Deputy Contends in Polish Parliamen

The Talmud does not prohibit the dissection of Jewish dead, Deputy Bielicki, a member of the antisemitic National Democratic Party, contended in speaking in the Seym to-day as Rapporteur on a bill introduced by Deputy Gruenbaum, for regulating the supply of corpses to the dissecting rooms of the Medical Faculties of the Polish Universities. The bill, which was rejected when put to the vote, sought to place on the Government and the University authorities the responsibility of providing corpses for the dissecting rooms, in order to put a stop to the movement which would make it the duty of the Jewish medical students to supply their own corpses, and in the absence of Jewish dead for them to dissect, would exclude them from the dissecting rooms.

Deputy Rabbi Levin, of the Agudath Israel, had solemnly declared that Jewish law prohibits the cutting up of dead bodies. Deputy Biclicki said that it was not true. There was nothing, he argued, in the Talmud which prohibited dissection. It was merely ghetto prejudice, and if the ghetto Jews refused to give up their dead for dissection, they must not complain if there was a numerus clausus enforced against their medical students. The whole trouble, he said, was that the Jews systematically sabotaged the supply of dead bodies to the dissecting rooms. In the last four years only one Jewish corpse had been supplied for dissection purposes in Vilna University. Five Jewish corpses had been brought into the dissecting rooms, but had been quickly removed. In Warsaw, during the same four years, only 11 Jewish corpses had been supplied to the dissecting rooms. This passive resistance was entirely due to Jewish religious darkness. If the Jews complained of the disturbances in the Medical Faculties when Jewish students were refused admission to the dissecting rooms, he wondered what they expected when the Christian students said that all the bodies provided for dissection were the bodies of Christians. Why should they provide Christian bodies for Jews to dissect, if no Jewish bodies were ever provided for dissection. There is no reasonable ground he said, why only Christians should supply dead bodies for scientific work. There must be equal rights in this matter. They could not legalise religious sabotage, and if they did, they would only incite the Polish youth.

Deputy Sommerstein on behalf of the Club of Jewish Deputies, said that what they claimed was that the regulation of the supply of corpses should be a matter for the Government. There was no University in any other country in the world which demanded that the students should supply their own corpses for their studies. The State or the University authorities provided the bodies. It was only a pretext to exploit the corpses question to drive the Jewish students out of the Medical Faculties. The State was looking on passively while these things were happening at the universities, which were a violation of the Constitution under which all citizens are guaranteed liberty of education and study.

Deputy Dubois, of the Polish Socialist Party, supported Deputy Gruenbaum’s motion. He agreed, he said, that the corpses question was being exploited for the chauvinist extermination campaign against non-Polish students and for hooligan excesses.

On being put to the vote, Deputy Gruenbaum’s motion was defeated, the National Democrats and the Deputies of the Pro-Government Club voting against it, while only the Polish Socialist Party supported the Jewish Deputies.