The Canadian Jewish Review extends cxm^t^iatior^ to the! Hadassah Chapters of Toronto on the League ^tadons' Baia^r, held in the Coliseum last week. A& the biggest enterprise of its land ever undertaken in the city by a single organization it j&how* what courage, imagination and devotion to .a cause can achieve. To the ladies, God bless them!
The will of the late Dr. Charles J). Spiyak, head of the Jewish Jewish Consumptive Relief Society ;^^N^yer, is ^h^^iarkabte document of a remarkable man. 1^^3rt^^t^ed^h^^idy to a medical college for scientific research |utt|?m.wne&> yiuVersity
of Jerusalem to be used for demonstrati6iip)>urpo8es in't^e stepartanent of anatomy and he willed that no^afl^fees^ or^ euUigie^^fcdeUvered at his funeral. His family was s^fj^rl^at Pr, S^^f^MA^^-decided to carry it out to theJet^^3^
Krauskopf, rabbi of Philaddphia,^^ He
asked that his family not wear iiibiijf$^ delivered over his body, but said tJ^;^
importance than that of the<Jead tphejy --M^o^^-jt^^^ik^ ii �' they so desired. f; '.-
Funeral services for Dr. Spivak were hel3 at Beth Ha'Medrosb Hagodol Synagogue in Denver. He had willed that the rites be cead in Yiddish with preference for YehoashV Yiddish translation of the-Bible. The medical advisory board of the Relief Society/ carrying out the directions of the will isent -the ernbarmed body to Colorado General Hospital, where it will be dissected by students of the medical school of the University of Colorado. Later the skeleton will be shipped to the University of Jerusalem "and all expenses incident to the embalming, dissection and shipping of the skeleton shall be paid by my estate."
It is significant that Dr. Spivak directed his body to be dissected by "an equal number of jion-Jewieh and Jewish students,"-or at all, for that matter. There is rigid opposition among most Jews to postmortem operations or investigations and dissection. When trouble has come up at Roumanian and other foreign universities between Jewish and non-Jewish students and Jewish students are excluded, it is exclaimed as a reason that Jews refuse the bodied of their dead for medical investigation but do not hesitate to operate on non-Jewish dead. Apropos of this, a lecturer at Hebrew Union Cohege a few years ago pointed out that the teachings of the Talmud are not against dissection; that, on the contrary, there are-plenty of examples to show that post-mortem investigations were not unu%ual enough to cause any surprise.
Perhaps it was with something like this in mind that Dr. Spivak wished his body to be used for purposes of study and particularly by an equal number of non-Jewish and Jewish students. It was not because dead bodies are hard to get for dissection and could not have been the mere fact that Dr. Spivak died from.cancer of the liver, since the disease is not rare. His body was no more valuable for purposes of study than thousands of others in the world/ but his example was valuable. He was an enlightened man. Perhaps he wanted to help a little to free people from superstition and custom. He evidently disapproved flatly of the Jewish attitude toward dissection of the Jewish ojead, especially in the light of the benefit to mankind that makes postmortem investigation necessary. This is an attitude never mentioned in the agenda of rabbinical conferences, Why? It is important. A new pronouncement cm the subject might not be out of place.   Dr. Spivak's will suggests it.
Dr. Spivak needs no eulogy after death. His. life won him eulogies during its time. It was a span of usefulness, influence, devotion to the needs of others. He was outside the'circle of men who in their pathos and vanity and humouriessness want wonderful words said over them so that others .may hear though they/ cannot. He left that to smaller men, men who accomplish 4ittle for. themselves or others, who are often unknown to the eulogist,/who-want some of the pomp they craved in lite granted as they turn to powerless dust. Their lives have been bcarad up with the things dial rust and rot and large eulogies must be said for them lest they go to their long home with nothing. This is not so with meri like Dr. Spivak and his friend, Yehoa&h, who died within the tame year. Their inner selves never rfie. They live on while people retqemberNthena and after mo^xrners go about the itxeets. Tbey five on forever by* that impress of the spirit w^khpimi .frrjcr pesaon jfco is neverJqfL '\'        - /. ."
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