NEW YORK, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today
by True Torah Jews:

Jewish groups in the United States who are concerned about the ongoing
accusations of an Israeli hospital, Hadassah, against a religious Jewish woman
plan to protest outside the hospital's Manhattan office at 50 W. 58th St. this
Wednesday, September 16 at 3:30 PM.

The woman's child, now three and a half years of age, was hospitalized at
Hadassah on and off for the last two years, as doctors at the hospital claimed
he had a mysterious illness that they could not diagnose. During that time,
hundreds of tests and procedures were performed on the child, many of them
painful and dangerous. Over the last several months, the child was fed only
intravenously. Many sorts of drugs, some with dangerous side effects, were
administered. All these procedures left the child weak and emaciated, weighing
half of what a child his age should weigh. 

The current battle began in July 2009, when the mother stopped trusting the
doctors and decided to transfer the child to a different hospital. Realizing
that this might lead to bad publicity for them, Hadassah decided to accuse her
of causing the child's illness. They alleged that she was suffering from a
mental condition known as Munchausen's syndrome, causing her to deliberately
withhold food from her son and lie about his symptoms in order to fool doctors
into thinking he was ill. (This is belied by the fact that before each period
of hospitalization, the child's health was much better than at the end of the
hospitalization.) 

According to True Torah Jews, the police arrested her and took her to jail,
where they tortured and intimidated her for ten days in the hopes that she
would confess to the charges. But she remained resolute. 

The reaction of the Orthodox community of Jerusalem was swift. Tens of
thousands protested in the streets, demanding that the woman be set free and
her son be released from the hospital. Under immense pressure, an Israeli
court decided to release the woman and her son, but that they could not see
one another. The young boy quickly began to gain weight and is on his way to
recovery. 

But Hadassah Hospital is not finished. They are still pursuing legal action
against the mother, which could lead to the court taking all her five children
away from her. The State of Israel cannot bear to see its most prestigious and
symbolically important hospital be tarnished with the terrible crime of
conducting medical research on an innocent child, so their legal system is
cooperating with Hadassah to make sure that the child's mother gets fully
blamed.

"Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and around the world are outraged over this
injustice and are coming out in protest," said Rabbi Menashe Fulop of
Brooklyn's Williamsburg Jewish community. "Letters and phone calls are pouring
into the hospital's offices demanding that the charges against the woman be
dropped and an investigation committee be set up to examine the conduct of the
doctors. Tomorrow's demonstration is a part of this protest. We will not stop
until the woman is reunited with all of her family." 

"This is not the first time that we have raised a storm over Hadassah's human
rights violations. In the 1960's and 70's, they were doing autopsies for
medical research without permission from the bereaved families. Then they cut
up dead people; now they cut up live people. It is not only this child; we
have testimony from hundreds of people who were used for research by doctors
at Hadassah." said Rabbi Fulop