Jewish Body Cleanup Crews’ Bitter Fight
Two groups dueled it out on Kings Highway and West Sixth Street in Flatbush, Brooklyn, slinging insults (“I’m going to cut your balls off”) and fighting over rights to a dead motorcyclist’s body. Police intervened and tempers eventually cooled, though only momentarily.
This is not the plot to a new action movie. Last April, Chesed Shel Emes and Misaskim — both nonprofit organizations that collect body parts and fluids for burial according to Jewish law — rushed to the scene of a late-night fight in Flatbush and, in a rare moment of collaboration, worked together to gather remains.
Yet the rift between Chesed Shel Emes and Misaskim is deep and heated. As the New York Post recently reported, Yanky Meyer, the leader of Misaskim, “was once recorded berating a Chesed Shel Emes volunteer who had helped transfer a body from a car crash to a New Jersey funeral home. ‘Once you drop this deceased off in Lakewood, you’d better disappear,’ he can be heard saying, ‘because if I find out you’re in the procession, I’m telling you right now — I’m going to cut your balls off.’”
And at an August 19 shooting in Flatbush, both crews rushed to the scene. “We got there first,” a Chesed Shel Emes volunteer told the Post.
Founded by Rabbi Mendel Rosenberg 25 years ago, Chesed Shel Emes boasts over 450 members (distinguishable by their green vest uniforms) and do around 300 burials and cleanups each year. Meanwhile, Misaskim, dubbed a “scrappy start-up” by the Post, monitors 911 calls and can be identified by members’ blue vests.
There’s no end in sight for this fight over blood, flesh and bone. Even Assemblyman Dov Hikind can’t help the clashing groups see eye to eye. “It’s a freaking shame,” he told the Post.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
