Two thousand angry zealots sought yesterday to break into the Government Tel Hashomer Hospital to protest a post mortem operation carried out on the body of the wife of the head of one of B’nai Brak’s leading religious academies.
The hassidim discovered, during preparations for the funeral of 42-year-old Mrs. Rahel Madel, that her heart had been removed in the hospital. Tempers mounted and the zealots began grouping for a march on the hospital. They were dissuaded from doing so by B’nai Brak Mayor S. Winberg.
(A special prayer session against the performance of autopsies in Israel was held last night in the Agudath Israel Beth Hamidrash in London. Appeals from leading Orthodox Jews against such autopsies were read during the service. Sermons on the issue were given in a number of London synagogues and some rabbis observed a half-day of fasting in protest.)
Mourners and members of Mrs. Madel’s family were particularly incensed because Tel Hashomer doctors had specifically promised not to perform a postmortem on a woman from a very religious family. When Mayor Winberg and his deputy took the issue up with Tel Hashomer hospital officials, they were given Mrs. Madel’s heart in a nylon container.
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