Hamas Celebrates Israeli District Court’s Ruling to ‘Cut Silent Prayers Before They Even Began’By David Israel and Austria’s Dreyfus Case: Photographer Philippe Halsman’s Murder Trial By Saul Jay Singer and Happy Jokes and Rabbi Dr Moshe Dovid Tendler, Pioneered Modern Medical Halacha, 95By Shmuel Landesman
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Why was the mortgage so upset? Because it was a loan
Why was the horse so happy? Because he lived in a stable environment
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
Why are frogs so happy? They eat whatever bugs them!
Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.
Berkowitz was in the best hospital in Long Island and was moaning the whole time, finally, he was transferred to a crummy hospital in Brooklyn, happy as anything, they ask him what the problem was before, he said before I had nothing to complain about ... HERE I CAN COMPLAIN!!!!
Shlomo and Hetty, an elderly widow and widower, had been dating for about three years when Shlomo finally decided to ask Hetty to marry him. She immediately said "yes". The next morning when he awoke, Shlomo couldn't remember what her answer was! "Was she happy? I think so. Wait, no, she looked at me funny..." After about an hour of trying to remember, but to no avail, he got on the telephone and gave Hetty a call. Embarrassed, he admitted that he didn't remember her answer to his proposal. "Oh", Hetty said, "I'm so glad you called. I remembered saying 'yes' to someone, but I couldn't remember who it was."
At his 103rd birthday party, Zadie Herman Rosenbaum was asked by his great grandson Shmueli if he planned to be around for his 104th."I certainly do Shmueli," Zadie Herman replied. "As a matter of fact, statistics show that very few people die between the ages of 103 and 104."
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Hamas Celebrates Israeli District Court's Ruling to 'Cut Silent Prayers Before They Even Began' By David Israel
Arabs celebrate the Israeli court decision against Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, Oct. 8, 2021.
The Jerusalem District Court Judge Aryeh Romanov last Friday evening accepted the police's appeal of the Magistrate's Court's decision which effectively allowed Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Bilha Yahalom on Wednesday revoked a restraining order that was handed to a Jewish rabbi who prayed on the Temple Mount, and confirmed that it is permissible for Jews to pray silently in the holiest Jewish site (Bombshell: Jerusalem Court Approves Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount).
On Friday, however, Israel Police appealed the decision of the Magistrate's Court, and Minister of Internal Security Omar Bar-Lev (Labor), warned of a regional flare-up should the court's decision be allowed to stand: "A change in the existing status quo would endanger public peace and may cause a flare-up," the minister said, adding, "The State of Israel advocates freedom of worship and prayer for all, but at the same time, in view of the security implications, the status quo which states that the prayer of Jews on the Temple Mount will take place next to the Western Wall and that the prayer of Muslims will take place in al-Haram a-Sharif (Arabic for the Temple Mount compound, yes he actually used the enemy's phrase – DI) – must be maintained.
Abdul Rahman Younes, a columnist for the Hamas publication Felesteen News (poor chaps can't pronounce the P sound in the Roman empire's second century's name for Eretz Israel), on Saturday published a glowing response to the Jewish district court's nullification of Jewish freedom of religion, under the headline:هكذا قُطعت "الصلوات الصامتة" قبل أن تبدأ(roughly translated as "This is how the 'silent prayers' were cut before they even began."
This is how the court's decision was perceived by the nice folks over on the Hamas side of the border:
The resistance factions in Gaza have ably succeeded in weaving a solid line between their weapons and Jerusalem, and imposed new rules of engagement with the Israeli occupier, forcing it to change many of its tactics, and deterring it from carrying out criminal plans against the occupied city of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, starting with the [rerouting of] march of their wobbly flags and ending with their prohibition of silent prayer and the temporal and spatial division of the Blessed Mosque, and between them their reluctance to make a decision to displace Sheikh Jarrah's families, and their postponing of the court sessions again and again.
All these achievements would not have been possible without the steadfastness of our people in Jerusalem and the support of the people in the occupied territories of 1948, who constitute a safety valve for the Holy City after the Palestinian Authority and the Hashemite guardians abandoned it, and before them the leaders of the Arab League, the owners of statements of empty condemnations and denunciations
In other words, Arab violence work, and more Arab violence works even better. Israel capitulates before the Arab determination to round up thousands every time Jews are permitted to exercise their religious, national, and even legal rights, and the Arabs win the day through sheer intimidation, rioting, and even murder. It all pays off.
Younes boasts:
This retreat did not come out of nowhere. The Palestinians took the initiative – because they are the most worthy and capable – and stopped it at its own end after they rose up against the Occupation and clashed with it in all locations, with their backs protected from the south, because they know that there are people standing at the missile positions waiting for the decisive moment. Because they know that silence about this decision or allowing it to pass will waste their right to Al-Aqsa, so they cut off the prayers before they begin.
Remains of the Khaqra citadel / Asaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority
The District Court's ruling last Friday reminded me of the Khaqra citadel which was built by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BCE in the corner of the Temple Mount and remained under Syrian control until its destruction by the Hasmoneans in 141 BCE. For 35 years, despite the removal of Syrian rule from Judea, the rulers of Damascus continued to maintain their enclave, complete with armed soldiers, in the heart of otherwise liberated Jerusalem. The day of the destruction of the Khaqra became a holiday, on Iyar 23 (Ta'anit 2).
The Syrian kings were able to maintain their citadel on the Temple Mount because the Hellenized Jews (that era's equivalent of secular Israelis) wanted them to stay. They feared their own demise both culturally and literally, should their foreign protectors be made to leave.
Today, very much like the time of the Second Temple, the absence of Jewish control over the Temple Mount represents the deep gap in the nation over our national future. And as long as the vast majority of Israeli Jews reject the Temple Mount, Jerusalem will continue to be ruled by Hamas, represented unwittingly by the likes of Omer Bar-Lev.
The only way to change this is to convince massive numbers of Israeli Jews to go up to the Temple Mount, to visit the earthly home of our Father in Heaven. If the other side amasses 100 thousand – let us bring half a million. Otherwise we should just shut up and let the Arab owners of the land manage its fate through their Israeli secular agents.
Rabbi Dr Moshe Dovid Tendler, Pioneered Modern Medical Halacha, 95
Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler (left) with Rabbi Yosef Elboim, a Belzer chassid and activist, on Har HaBayis.
On Shemini Atzeres, Tuesday, September 28, Rabbi Dr Moshe Dovid Tendler – YU Rosh Yeshiva, Biology professor and medical halacha trailblazer – passed away in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, at age 95. His funeral and burial took place in Monsey, New York, after the chag on Thursday, September 30.
Rav Moshe Dovid Tendler was born in August 1926 on Manhattan's Lower East Side to Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler. The senior Rabbi Tendler was the rav of the prestigious Kaminetzer Shul and a R"M at Yeshiva Rabbi Jacob Joseph (RJJ). The young Moshe Dovid received his early education at RJJ. He subsequently attended Yeshiva University High School for Boys (MTA) and learned at RIETS for eight years. He was an early talmid muvhak of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. Rabbi Tendler simultaneously attended New York University where he received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in biology. He subsequently earned a PhD in microbiology from Columbia University. During his post-doctoral work at Columbia, Rabbi Tendler almost discovered a cure for cancer.
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In 1948, Rabbi Tendler married Shifra Feinstein, daughter of the renowned posek Rav Moshe Feinstein. Rav Tendler had a close relationship with his father-in-law, whom he revered. Rav Feinstein was the world's foremost halachic authority during the four decades following World War II. Rabbi Yosef Blau, mashgiach ruchani at RIETS, spoke to The Jewish Press about the significance of this association. "Rav Tendler was critical for all of Rav Moshe's responsa on issues of medical halacha. He provided his father-in-law with the scientific and medical information necessary for the latter to issue teshuvos in this new field. Rav Moshe trusted his son-in-law. "
In the early 1950s, Rav Tendler became the first American-born rebbi in the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan. Rav Hershel Schachter, rosh reshivah at RIETS, was a student of Rav Tendler's at MTA over 65 years ago. That year Rabbi Tendler taught his high school students 40 dafim of Gemara with Tosafos. He also taught them the traditions in paskening halacha. His examinations were formidable.
Rabbi Tendler continued to be promoted and was eventually appointed to be one of the roshei yeshiva at RIETS, a position he held until his passing. Rabbi Menachem Penner, dean of RIETS, told The Jewish Press, "Rabbi Dr. Tendler lived to teach Torah. While he may be best remembered for his brilliance and the vast breadth of his knowledge, what his students, especially those of his later years, will remember is the immense passion he brought for transmitting Torah to others."
At the same time, Rabbi Tendler was appointed as an instructor of biology at Yeshiva College. Eventually, Dr. Tendler became a tenured professor of Biology and chaired the Biology Department for decades. Every Yeshiva College student who majored in science or pre-med was required to take Professor Tendler's Introduction to Biology course. Dr. Alan Weissman was a YC student in the 1980s. He told The Jewish Press, "Rabbi Tendler was an extremely demanding professor who insisted the students master a tremendous amount of material."
Rav Tendler dedicated over 75 years of his life to RIETS/YU. He was, in the words of Rabbi Blau, "A man who epitomized Torah Umadda (Torah and Science), the values upon which Yeshiva University is based. He was both a genuine talmid chacham and a well respected scientist."
Rabbi Hershel Schachter told The Jewish Press that this combination led Rabbi Tendler to have a great impact on the world Jewish scene. "Decades ago, the Orthodox got no respect. There was this sense that modern science contradicted the Torah. Rav Tendler made a huge Kiddush Hashem by disproving that notion. He would give an annual lecture to Yeshiva College students on how the theory of evolution does not negate the Torah. He would also lecture around the world on this topic."
Rabbi Tendler, who was also a professor of Jewish Medical Ethics at YU, was a seminal figure in the burgeoning field of medical halacha. He lectured widely and published dozens of articles on topics such as brain death, organ donation, fertility procedures, metzitzah b'peh and stem cell research. Rav Tendler co-authored a textbook of Jewish responsa to medical issues and authored an English translation of some of Rav Moshe Feinstein's key medical teshuvos.
During the past several decades, Rabbi Tendler was also an important posek in the Orthodox community regarding medical halacha, dealing with hundreds of questions in this area each year. A rabbi, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Jewish Press that two decades ago, he and his wife were confronting an infertility diagnosis, with specialists offering different confusing treatment options. "I called Rabbi Tendler, who did not know me, and he agreed to meet with us the next day to discuss the relevant halachos. The rav asked us to bring our medical histories. When we came over to his house, Rabbi Tendler thoroughly read our medical charts and clearly and patiently explained to us the different diagnoses and treatment options. He then gave us halachic guidance regarding the different solutions. I cannot emphasize what a sense of relief we felt due to Rav Tendler."
The Tendlers started out their married life in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. As the family grew, in 1960 they moved to suburban Monsey. In 1966, Rabbi Tendler was chosen to be the first rav of the small fledgling Community Synagogue of Monsey (CSM). Rabbi Tendler refused to take any salary and accepted on the condition that his first obligation be to the Yeshiva. Rabbi Tendler had a major impact upon his congregants and under his leadership the shul grew to 250 member families.
Rabbi Yona Reiss, Av Beth Din, Chicago Rabbinical Council, grew up in Rabbi Tendler's shul. As he told The Jewish Press, " CSM was a large shul filled to capacity where Rav Tendler had an authoritative commanding presence and for whom we had the greatest reverence. He was a forceful and eloquent speaker who answered all our halachic questions. Rabbi Tendler also took a personal interest in his congregants and was a tremendous baal chesed."
Rabbi Aron Tendler told The Jewish Press, "My father had a love for people and capacity to care for anyone who needed his help. He combined a tireless hasmadah in learning all things with a fearless determination to know the truth."
The younger Rabbi Tendler continued, "My father should be remembered for being a talmid chacham who proved in word and deed that science and Torah are one and the same and as someone who was mekadesh Shaim Shamayim."
Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler is survived by his brother, Rabbi Sholom Tendler (Los Angeles) and children, Rivka Rappaport (Jerusalem), Dr. Yacov Tendler (Monsey), Rabbi Mordechai Tendler (New Hempstead), Rabbi Aron Tendler (Baltimore), Rabbi Hillel Tendler (Baltimore), Sara Oren (Efrat), Russi Fried (Woodmere), Eli Tendler (Lawrence) and many grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife of 59 years, Shifra Tendler.
Austria's Dreyfus Case: Photographer Philippe Halsman's Murder Trial
Philippe Halsman (1906-1979), born in Riga to Morduch, a Jewish dentist, and Ita, a Jewish grammar school principal, is best known as one of the most innovative photographers of his – or any – era. His often-playful and creative photographs reflected an incredible ability to reveal the spirit and character of his subjects, and his photographs were among the first to be considered works of art. Among his accomplishments, his photographs were featured on the covers of over 100 issues of Life magazine and he designed important improvements to the twin-lens reflex camera.
Halsman's portrait of Einstein on the famous 1999 cover of Time magazine.
Halsman was known particularly for his striking portraits of celebrities, politicians and intellectuals, including Churchill, JFK, Chagall, Sinatra, Bernard Baruch, Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe . . . the list goes on. One of his most famous and beloved works was his image of his close friend Albert Einstein, which appeared on both a 1966 U.S. postage stamp and on the 1999 cover of Time magazine when Einstein was named Person of the Century. But perhaps his most renowned photograph, unquestionably one of the most recognized images of all time, was Dali Atomicus, his gravity-defying portrait of his good friend and collaborator, Salvador Dali (see exhibit).
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The astonishing, but largely unknown, story of Halsman's Dreyfus-like ordeal begins on September 10, 1928, when the Halsman family was vacationing in the Tyrolean Alps near Innsbruck and 22-year-old Philippe went out on a hike with his father, Mordurch (Max). After they passed the cabin at the base of the trail operated by Josef Eder, who maintained the hiking trail, the trail narrowed to a width of about a yard along a sharp 45-degree cliff. Max had stopped to relieve himself and Philippe was walking a few steps down trail when, as he told the story, he suddenly heard a scream and turned just in time to see his father falling down the cliff into the precipice.
After finding a descent down to the riverbank below, he found his father in a stream, badly injured but still alive. He tried to pull him out of the water, but Max was too heavy, so he was only able to pull out the upper part of his body. Screaming for assistance, Philippe climbed back to the trail, where he met Alois Riederer, a shepherd, and a peasant woman picking berries. He begged the woman to return to the cabin and bring assistance while he and Alois returned to the bottom of the ravine.
Halsman's mind-boggling (and pre-auto shop!) Dali Atomicus.
When they arrived back at the stream, Philippe discovered that his father was dead and that although there was no damage to his trunk, his skull had been crushed in three places and there was a gash across the length of his forehead that had not previously been there and had been cut so deep that cranial matter was exposed. Max's papers were scattered around the area, his empty wallet was found about seven feet from the body, and his gold-framed glasses were missing. When the police arrived and searched the path, they found a rock covered with some of Max's hair sitting in a blood-soaked area that trailed to the edge of the cliff. When they searched Philippe, they found he was clean (i.e., no blood) and that he had nothing except the train ticket in his pocket that he had purchased for his return trip after the hike.
At this time, German laws had already been adopted in Austria excluding Jews from participating in many areas of public life, including resolutions barring citizens from hosting Jews as guests. For example, when the 25th Zionist Congress was held in Vienna three years earlier, Sigismund Waltz, the Archbishop of Innsbruck, hosted a large convocation group of Austrian and German Catholics to discuss "the world Jewish danger" and what the fine citizens of Austria could do about the threat from these "alien people."
Notwithstanding that there was not a shred of evidence to suggest any criminal wrongdoing by Philippe, the fact that he was a Jew was obviously sufficient for medical experts to determine that Max was the victim of his son's brutal assault and for the authorities to establish his guilt. He was arrested, charged with patricide, and imprisoned in Innsbruck.
The trial, which began on December 13, 1928, at the Innsbruck state court, engendered broad interest and became a national affair. Halsman was defended by the famous Austrian Jewish lawyer Richard Pressburger, who, notwithstanding his superior abilities and well-earned reputation as an outstanding trial lawyer, turned out to be a poor choice of counsel. He was from socialist Vienna and did not find favor with the jury, which was drawn from the Catholic and very conservative Tyrol population. Moreover, he committed the unpardonable offense of being a Jew and, every time he spoke, there were murmurs from the citizens in the gallery asking if anything could be done to "shut that filthy Jew up."
The "evidence" against Halsman at trial included a presentation of Max's skull which, notwithstanding passionate entreaties from the Halsman family to preserve the body intact in order to permit a proper Jewish burial, had been severed from his body by Professor Meixner, head of the Forensic Medicine Department at the University of Innsbruck, who had performed the autopsy. No evidence was presented, however, with respect to how this macabre evidence had anything to do with Halsman's guilt or innocence. Moreover, in a remarkably disingenuous move reeking of anti-Semitism, the prosecution argued that the family's desire to dispose of the "evidence" as soon as possible evidenced their awareness of Philippe's guilt.
To establish Philippe's alleged motive for the murder, the prosecution introduced testimony from several pro-Nazi witnesses from the nearby town who characterized Philippe's conduct at the crime scene "suspicious" – while also casually observing that these Jews had no business being there in the first place. One young boy testified that he had seen the Halsmans on the trail talking loudly and waving their hands which, the prosecution argued, showed that Philippe wanted to kill Max. The prosecution also argued that Philippe had motive because he stood to inherit his father's insurance money.
In opposition, Pressburger introduced testimony from dozens of family members who provided powerful testimony regarding the close and loving relationship between father and son. He argued that the problem with the prosecution's argument that Philippe would receive a huge benefit payment was that Max had no insurance policies. Pressburger tried to introduce evidence of other unsolved murder-robberies that had taken place in the same valley where the bodies were found, with wounds identical to those that Max had sustained but, unbelievably, the court dismissed this evidence as "irrelevant."
After a four-day trial and based upon nothing other than unmitigated anti-Semitism, the jury deliberated only half an hour before convicting Halsman on a 9-3 vote, and he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and hard labor in solitary confinement. Much as the Dreyfus trial some 25 years earlier, the judgment and sentence generated international attention and drew broad protest across Austria and Germany, including opposition from leading legal scholars and journalists.
Philippe's supporters included Albert Einstein; Thomas Mann, Nobel Laureate in Literature; Erich Fromm, a noted German-Jewish social psychologist and philosopher; and physiologist Charles Richet, a Nobel Laureate in Medicine. One of his greatest defenders was the French League for the Defense of Human Rights, the organization that had been at the forefront of advocating for Alfred Dreyfus in the notorious Dreyfus Affair.
On December 17, 1928, the Supreme Court of Austria heard Philippe's appeal, ruled the jury's verdict was inconsistent with the evidence, and remanded the case back to the Innsbruck trial court for a new trial. This process is analogous to a motion for JNOV ("judgment notwithstanding the verdict") in the American legal system, where counsel for the defendant argues that no reasonable jury could have reached this verdict and that it had made its decision based upon legally insufficient grounds.
By then, Halsman's family had come to understand the breadth of Austrian anti-Semitism and the role it had played in Phillippe's conviction, so they specifically sought a gentile lawyer and ultimately retained Franz Pessler, a former Jesuit fiercely dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties in his beloved homeland – which certainly created great personal risk to him on the eve of the Anschluss.
Perhaps the most farcical development in a case marked by farce was the attempt by the Austrian authorities at the second trial to establish motive by introducing testimony by a panel of medical faculty from the University of Innsbruck alleging – again without proof – that Phillippe acted pursuant to an Oedipus complex. In response, Pessler presented testimony rebutting any suggestion that Philippe had committed patricide because of his Oedipus complex from no less an authority than Professor Sigmund Freud – who presumably knew something about the subject.
Freud testified that the Oedipus complex is a universal psychological phenomenon in boys and men and that, as such, could have no bearing on Halsman's motive. He protested what he characterized as the misuse of his work, noting the inherent problems of adapting his psychoanalytic theories in a legal setting. [A message that contemporary lawyers seem to have missed.] He summed up the case through a metaphor involving a man found with a crowbar being convicted for a burglary: After the verdict had been rendered and the defendant was given the opportunity to make a statement, he suggested that the court could also sentence him for adultery because the crowbar could have been used for that purpose as well. See The Expert Opinion (Sigmund Freud, 1930).
Nonetheless, at the second trial on October 19, 1929, Halsman was again convicted by an anti-Semitic kangaroo court, although for a lesser crime (manslaughter) and for a shorter term of incarceration (4 years).
Pessler and Halsman had become exceptionally devoted to each other. As reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on December 4, 1929, the Christian population of Innsbruck was outraged that a Christian had undertaken to defend the Jew Halsman, and Pessler had taken the case at great risk to his life. Phillippe said that he would always remember how Pessler "sat down on the table and began to weep . . . I will never forget how much his tears moved me and how much I loved him."
Pessler described his client as "a broken man:"
His imprisonment has resulted in a lung infirmity. His engineering studies have been interrupted and subsequently cut off. Who can right all the wrongs he has suffered? Even if we succeeded in bringing another trial to court, and prove his innocence beyond a doubt, the years of imprisonment and the horrible accusations will have taken their toll.
After Halsman's second conviction, Pressler continued to fight for him. When Philippe's tuberculosis became serious in his second year of imprisonment, he received a pardon from Wilhelm Miklas, the president of Austria, and was released on October 1, 1930. His letters from prison were published as Briefe aus der Haft an eine Freundin (1930), and he thereafter discussed his trial ordeal very rarely.
After the Anschluss, Pessler was sent to Dachau as a political prisoner on May 31, 1938, and he was not released until a year later. Ironically, he died in 1979, the same year as Philippe Halsman.
After his pardon, Halsman moved to France, where he opened a studio and gained early renown as a talented photographer. On the eve of Hitler's invasion of Paris, he found himself in a most precarious situation, not only because his criminal conviction shut off the very few avenues of escape available to Parisian Jews, but also because he was a marked man, having taken photographs of the Nazis designed to show the truth of who and what they were that were broadly published worldwide.
Halsman's sister, Liouba, who had campaigned tirelessly for him through his trials and had traveled across Europe to generate support for him, also played a key role in helping him to escape Paris. She enlisted the assistance of Eleanor Roosevelt's Emergency Rescue Committee to get him to Portugal, from where she arranged his passage to the United States in 1941. Also playing a leading role in getting Halsman to America was Albert Einstein, who pulled every string he could to bring him to the attention of the American government and Jewish refugee rescue groups.
For example, in an August 16, 1940, correspondence to Otto Nathan, a Princeton University economist, a passionate worker in support of rescuing Jewish refugees, and perhaps his closest personal friend, Einstein wrote:
The wife and sister of Philippe Halsman, who was formerly incarcerated in Austria, have consulted me concerning his dangerous predicament. (You no doubt remember him from the Dreyfus Affair.) He is in unoccupied France in the vicinity of Vichy. His predicament is caused by the fact that he took pictures critical of the Nazis that have now been acquired by the world press. On these grounds I am certain that his rescue from the German occupation is not only justified, but rather completely fits the criteria of the Roosevelt Rescue Action.
After Ernst Ruzika, an Austrian lawyer and a fervent Halsman supporter, was murdered at Buchenwald, his son, Martin Ross, continued his fight to clear Halsman's name. He wrote to Austrian President Franz Jonas requesting the nullification of Philippe's guilty verdict so as to clear his name and, as a result, the conviction was finally expunged by the attorney general of Austria on March 29, 1973. The murderer of Max Halsman was never found.
Max had been buried in the Jewish cemetery at Innsbruck, which was destroyed by the Nazis along with all the other Jewish graves there. Adding insult to injury, the graves were dug up in 1980 and reinterred under a single headstone to make way for a highway – with no notice to the families of the loved ones buried there.
In 1991, Dr. Erhard Busek, the Austrian Minister of Science and Research with authority over all Austrian universities, ordered the chief of medicine at the University of Innsbruck to deliver Max's head – which had been kept in a jar for over six decades – to the Jewish community for a proper burial. The ceremony was attended by R. Chaim Eisenberg, the chief rabbi of Austria.
Some authorities attribute the deep empathy that Halsman brought to his work and his uncanny ability to extract the essence of personality in his photographs to his imprisonment and trial as a young man. They maintain that his joy of life, so evident in his work, is a manifestation of having lived through his monstrous ordeal and then barely escaping Hitler's death camps.
