"while I agree that the exhibit is deeply wrong, I'm not sure a program (my proposal to  demonstrate) is a good response ... the best thing to do is reinforce Jewish conceptions of the body..." 

"Kol Hakavod Aaron, I agree with you that this traveling exhibit is sensationalistic and yet another affront to human dignity. If this were an exhibit of animals the PETA people and all their supporters would be screaming to the heavens! I applaud you for speaking up for human dignity!

When I was a dental student we were taught in gross anatomy class to have the utmost respect for the deceased people whom we were learning from. We were taught that they had donated their bodies in order to teach students and to hopefully, thereby, help their fellow man. At the end of the class a memorial service was held so that we could pay our final respects to these people. Beyond anatomy a proper respect for human dignity was taught in this course. I wonder what has happened to those same values today."

A brief demonstration with a crude sign stating "Stop Body Worlds" appeared to be flop.  It turned out to be during a monsoon. But it caught the attention of both the Boston Herald and the Patriot-Ledger.  The Herald  asked where I would be in case they a picture. Wiser heads ultimately prevailed and a flayed head from the exhibit graced the  article. The headline said "Bodies exhibit gets under pharmacist's skin."  The article stated my concern about human dignity, quoted the museum   saying the bodies were donated, and quoted a bio-ethicist, who, while not agreeing with me, said that I raised a serious issue.  The Patriot-Ledger quoted me:


Two months later  the exhibit opened. I was invited to speak with  WBUR radio. To get the best quality recording my daughter and I drove up to their studio across from Boston University. We were proudly shown the studio with the latest equipement. During a brief interview, the  reporter  asked if I would be demonstrating.  When I said  that I had to work she said, "Will anyone from your organization be going?" I admitted that I was the organization. I  picketed  the next day and visited the Boston Jewish Advocate. The result was a lengthy story.  On the way home I was surprised to get a call from   Fox-25 TV The News at 10. I was   asked when an interview  would be convenient.  I was told that that the crew would be glad to come to me, and that they were at the Museum. We agreed on 7:00 PM at my house on Ames St. in Sharon, Massachusetts. I got home around 6:30 PM   Soon an SUV pulled up and two men hopped out and  interviewed me  on the front lawn.  When the finished  they said thank you, as if I was doing them a favor.    I realized that I had stumbled on a cause without a voice. They broadcast my strongest comment: "No one can give you permission do to something that is wrong" and showed a glimpse of this website and the sign I was holding when I demonstrated.

    In September someone from Seattle signed my petition.  A copy cat exhibit called Bodies:the Exhibition was about to open.  The bodies in Seattle were from China, and it is unclear whose bodies they are. This is  a human rights issue, since China has been accused of  executing prisoners to harvest their organs for transplantation.

    Pastor Christoph Reiners  wrote an article about   Body Worlds in Vancouver.   He mentioned a Berlin Rabbi's comment that the exhibit was reminiscent of the lampshades the Nazis fabricated from the skin of their victims.. Christoph's point was that these exhibits treat our bodies as machines, and thereby deny us our humanity. When we treat our bodies and ourselves  as objects, it is easy  to conclude that it does not matter if a few, or a few million of these objects are harmed. Soon school field trips were banned by the Abbotsford, British Columbia schools.

    I realized that my concern with Boston was somewhat parochail. My website is now devoted to stopping these exhibits wherever they appear. Among the comments have been two from  high school students who  were  ridiculed by their teachers and fellow students when they expressed their qualms about  field trips to Bodies: the Exhibition .

    In Phoenix, I was  on KFYI's Joe Crummy show.   I confided my fears of being chewed  up and made into mincemeat, and was treated with kid gloves.


   I've  received encouragement from many who have spoken out about these exhibits including  Rabbis Reuven Hammer and Baruch Friedman-kohl,  who wrote back matter in the Conservative Tannach Etz Hayim , and from  Rabbi  Andreas Nachama in Berlin. Rabbi Nachama posted a link to my site on his home page!

Real bodies are unnecessary to present the plasticized  version of reality in these exhibits.   Real things are not needed to educate or to shock.   Hollywood knows this and so did Hitler. Seventy of my relatives are lying in a pit in Belarus because he  convinced others that it was a good idea. Reality had nothing to do  with this.

While on vacation  in Israel January 2007,  Clear Channel (southern us) radio  interviewed me as I drove by the Dead Sea.   Will my trumpeting bring down the walls of Jericho?  No.  But it will alert the public to the  problems with these exhibits. I have  reached many minds with surprising ease, but reaching  hearts is more difficult.

  I also wrote an op-ed column  that appeared in a suburban newspaper chain in the Boston area. I own the copyright, and you may quote from it, with attribution, freely. I was also interviewed by the Metro-West Daily, Framingham, Ma. Be sure to listen to the words.

Here is a link to Deutschlandradio Kultur, a German radio station that covered the story of a body processing facily/museum opening in Guben, Germany.
 

Feel free to contact me for more information
Aaron Ginsburg  dignityinboston@gmail.com
Foxboro, MA










Aaron Ginsburg
Sharon, MA


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