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Chile – Fort Lauderdale Fla. Rabbi Leibel Miller came to Chile to deal with the return of the bodies to the United States, on the request of the cruise liner – and the ticking clock of Jewish law.
Miller, of Hallandale Beach, Fla., was in the desert “in the middle of nowhere,” he said, rushing to get the dead home to New Jersey following Wednesday’s accident when 14 Celebrity Cruise ship tourists in a van careened off a Chilean mountainside. A dozen died and two were injured.
Miller was working to bring the bodies home before the Shabbas beginning.
Miller worked with the Chilean District Attorney’s Office on Thursday to facilitate the paperwork for the flights home. Then, he convinced the Chilean government to allow shipping the bodies without embalming, according to Jewish law and tradition. Embalming is usually required by some countries for shipment.
In Chile, he rented refrigerated containers to store the bodies before he was able to seal them in caskets.
Late in the day he was still working with the police to release the bloody clothing, needed according to proper Jewish burials. And two chartered planes are expected to transport the remains at 3 a.m. Friday.
here is list of the victims
From the Ponds retirement village in Monroe Township, N.J.
Barbara, 69, and Robert Rubin, 72: The couple were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and Robert’s birthday, which was the day he died, daughter-in-law Joy Rubin said. Robert Rubin was a radar troubleshooter for the Federal Aviation Administration in Morristown, N.J. Barbara Rubin, a retired customer service representative, was an avid traveler and liked to play mah-jongg.
Frieda, 74, and Arthur Kovar, 67: Arthur Kovar helped organize the trip, as he had with trips to China and Argentina involving people from the Ponds.
Carole Ruchelman, 63: She and her husband recently donated money to help sponsor a 200-year-old Torah now on display at a synagogue in Monroe Township. Harold Ruchelman, 68, survived the crash.
Marian Diamond, 76: She and her husband made a “very friendly, very easy-to-be- with couple,” said Evelyn Goldstein, president of the Jewish Congregation of Concordia. Bernard Diamond, 66, survived the crash.
Maria, 71, and Hans Eggers, 72: The husband was known around the Ponds as a helpful handyman.
Shirley, 76, and Marvin Bier, 79.
From Stamford, Conn.
Linda, 63, and Ira Greenfield, 68: She was a substitute teacher at an alternative high school, a home tutor and a volunteer at their synagogue. He was a salesman at a TV and appliance store. They had three grown children and four grandchildren.
MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J. — The Jewish Congregation of Concordia knows about grief and loss. The synagogue has six members who lost children in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Now the congregation is grieving again: six of its members were killed and two others seriously injured when their vacation tourist bus tumbled more than 300 feet down a mountainside in Chile on Wednesday. “This is going to be another one of those times,” said Cantor Eli Perlman, the synagogue’s spiritual leader.
Those six members, along with four others who lived in the same retirement community near Princeton, were among the dozen people who died in the crash.
The victims – all in their 60s and 70s – were part of a 64-member B’nai B’rith group that was traveling aboard the cruise ship Millennium, a Celebrity Cruises official said.