Jews Fight to Die Their Way

For more than a decade, Rabbi Daniel Wasserman has been the first point of contact for religious Jews in Pittsburgh seeking a halakhic funeral for their deceased loved ones. But if the Pennsylvania Board of Funeral Directors triumphs in its ongoing dispute with this spirited 47-year-old rabbi, Wasserman may find that he’s unable to preside over another funeral without running afoul of the board’s investigators.

For the past three years, Wasserman has been locked in a bitter conflict with the Funeral Board, the body that licenses and protects commercial funeral directors in the state. At the root of the quarrel is Pennsylvania’s Funeral Director Law, on the books in its present form since 1951. According to the rabbi, the law does not mandate mourners to purchase the services of a commercial funeral director. The Funeral Board believes the opposite, that there is precisely such a mandate—and thus argues that Wasserman, who like many rabbis is not a licensed funeral director, is violating Pennsylvania law. The stand-off has become so charged that on Aug. 6, Wasserman’s lawyers filed a complaint with the district court in Scranton, Pa. The rabbi is demanding $75,000 in damages from the Funeral Board for “the harassment, the illegal investigation, smearing my name, and trying to prevent me from fulfilling my duties,” he said in a recent interview. But what he wants even more is a ruling that will definitively slice away the legal foundations that the funeral directors say underwrite their position.