Postmortem fetal extraction before burial of a pregnant woman: A forgotten custom that should remain buried.

Abstract

In the late 19th century there appeared a brief article in a European Jewish journal. The journal, founded by Belz Chassidim in 1879 as an organ of the Orthodox communities of Lemberg and Galicia, often combated the ideas of the reformers and innovators of the Enlightenment (maskilim).1 The article, attacking a recently established rabbinical seminary, debated the nature, practice and interpretation of a unique rabbinic custom. The consequences of this discussion, however, were not merely academic, as the lives of a Jewish couple lay in the balance. __In this essay, we briefly review the historical context of this article, but focus our attention on the substance of the dispute – an obscure custom, of unclear origins, regarding the burial of pregnant women, which was practiced for a brief period in Jewish history. As we shall see, the custom was subsequently abandoned, for good reason, and has been virtually lost from the collective memory of contemporary Jewry. (from Introduction)