The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-07-19
COBENS WIN BURIAL CASE.
COSTS OF $1,478 AGAINST CON- CREIGHTON SHEARITH ISRA Fl.

Court Holds That the Body of Andelu
 Cohen May be Disinterred on the The Ory That it Was Buried COnditiOnally and Not That 1t Might Rest Until the
 Last Day.
 The Cohens are to be buried all to- gether in Mount Nebo Cemetery and thus is ended a controversy that has agitated rabbinical circle throughout the English speaking world for the past five years,
 Such Is the happy result of decision handed down by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. All Hebraism, ultra orthodox, orthodox, conservative, moderate reform reform and ultra reform, has been stirred by the question that the court had to de- l termine, and for it's determination the most leraned student of the Talulud and the Old Testament were called in as experts.
 1 The court has decreed that the child 1 ren of Daniel s. Cohen may remove the body of their mother, Adela, from its l present resting place to the family plot at Mount Nebo And incidentally the ] court has come to the conclusion that the Talmudic and other authorities on l the removal of the dead are not at all l in accord nor very definite.
 The Congregation Shearith Isarel, the oldest Jewish congregation in America
 descendants of the old Spanish and 1 Portuguese settlers, has been worrying over the Cohen affair for five years, 1 Rabbi H, Pereira Mendes, who presides over the congregation synagoue in l Central Park West, was drawn into the 1 discussion, and to his aid he called the 1 Chief Rabbi, Moses Caster of England,
 and many other men learned in the Talmudlc law
 But ali to no purpose. The Cohens have won and the orthodox rabbis have l lost As one of them was heard to
 say yesterday. it is enough to make q
 patriarch turn in his grave to think
 that orthodoxy must yield to reform, l even in the courts.
 The Cohens number eight, one of
 them an Isaacs now, for she married. They are called Howard. Gertrude, Es-
 tele Edith Edwin, Emily and Blanche | Cohen. The widow is Agnes Isaacs.
 They are all children of Adela and l Daniel S. Cohen, who trace their des- cent to some immigrants of generations
 past. Daniel was a member of Shearith
 Israel and died a seatholder, though
 long before he had fallen away from
 the orthodox estate to attend reform
 synagogue that was nearer hls 134th
 street home.
 Back in 1890, when the Cohens were
 in very moderate circumstances, Mrs.
 Cohen died. Daniels rights as a sea-
 holder entitled him to bury her in the
 congregational cemetery, where he ex- pected also to lie himself some day. The Shearith Israel established itself
 in New York in 1655 and before long
 picked out a burying ground where
 Oliver street now runs into New Bow
 cry. There they laid to rest their dead
 brethen, and the little plot lasted till 1920, The congregation still owns it.
 and the passerby on the South Ferry
 train may still perceive the old head
 stones.
 In 1920 the congregation bought an
 other plot at Eleventh street neat
 Sixth avenue, and nine years later went
 further afieId to Twenty-first street
 west of Sixth avenue. All thse eenle-
 tries are still the congregatins pro. perty But in 1851 it was decided tc
 get out of the city and the congrega.
 ton bought a large plot at Cypress
 Hills Middle Village, L. I. Since ther all dead members have been buried
 there.
 Daniel Cohen, while somewhat faller
 from orthodoxy, was still is good stand ing with the congregation, having kept
 up his dues, but it was one of tht
 Cohen woes that there was no family plot. Adela had often wished for ont
 and so did Daniel, but a plot at Cy press Hills would cost, oh! hundreds O dollars, the yes out of your head So i
 was useless talking about it. But when they buried Adela in tn,
 regular row, reserving the space be
 sido her for Daniel, the latter stroked
 long beard and murmured 10 himsel thta Adela would not stay there loni if he could help it. She should rest il ) a fine family plot as soon as the boy and girls that were crying and tugginl at his coattails could get togethe enough money
 Daniel forgot to mention this wfsf , to the ofTicating rabbi If he had men toned it all the litigation that has en sued would have been unnecessary H may have told the sexton, but the sex ton died before Daniel died, so tha there was nothing to show that Adela' : burial was not a permanent one Ger : tainly nothing to show that it was t t be considered a "conditonal!" inter melt
 Ten years later Daniel was in ex . tremis. His children had prospere and he had told them often of the sa thing that they the Cohens with gen ! erations of American ancestry. shoul be separated in death. Tor there wa
 no more room in the regular row fo : any one but Daniel : Howard Cohen sought out the clerI ! iof the congregation, N. Taylor Philips and asked how about buying a famil plot at Cypress Hills He could hay one, he was told, for $40O. but it woul 9 E- ,T,.-- Il. -V-H