TVNZ.com
A Christchurch rabbi is battling efforts to autopsy an Israeli hiker whose body was found near the Mueller Glacier in the Southern Alps.
Rabbi Menachem Goldstein, director of the Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch sect in New Zealand, has been acting as a liaison between local officials and the Israeli Embassy in Australia.
He said on a news website run by the New York-based sect of Hasidic Judaism that the man, aged in his 20’s had been at the Chabad House in Christchurch last week and had been expected to attend this week’s Friday night Shabbat gathering.
Rabbi Goldstein said that he was working to prevent a routine autopsy, which Jewish law views in most cases as an unnecessary desecration of the body. In New Zealand, a victim’s family must lodge a formal complaint, but the final determination was up to the coroner.
“I’ve strongly advised the authorities against a post-mortem examination,” he said.
“I told them it should be avoided if at all possible, especially since foul play is not suspected.”
The park’s security director said the man appeared to have made a conscious decision to leave the track.
“For whatever reason this tramper has decided to go off the track and got himself into an area of danger and technical difficulty and fell,” he says.
The rabbi said that he and his staff were working to have the body transported back to Israel for burial before the weekend.
“We’re devastated,” he said. “My heart goes out to his family and friends.” Ohad is survived by his parents and two sisters. He was two months shy of his 27th birthday.
Christchurch is a place.
It is a city in New Zealand.
so strange words: “sect”, “Christchurch”?
who wrote this article?
They should make gates around the hole thing so no one can fall down its really dangerous at least there gonna hit the gate and might be a little hurt rather than falling off and dieing !
shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabis
for doing everything you can to preserve the kedusha of a yid’s guf!