Orthodox Cancer Teen Pleads in Video for Death With Dignity
A Haredi Orthodox teenager has released a video calling on the Israeli public to demonstrate in front of a Haifa hospital to demand that it discontinue his chemotherapy treatment.
The unnamed Israeli teen, 16, from Tiberias, says in the video released on Sunday that he is receiving the treatment against his will.
“Dear people of Israel: I ask anyone who can to come demonstrate here, at the entrance to Rambam Medical Center, against the forced treatment they want to impose on me,” he says in the video. “Anyone who has the opportunity – please come and demonstrate here so that they won’t force me to undergo treatment in handcuffs.”
The teen reportedly left the hospital without permission last week in order to evade the treatment. He was brought back by police under a court order.
“Even if I have to die, let me die with dignity – that’s all I ask,” he also says in the video.
The teen’s parents also reject the hospital’s desire to give their son chemotherapy, saying it will harm his emotional health, They also reportedly have said that their family rabbi told them to halt the treatment and bring him home where he will regain his health.
He has been in remission twice since his cancer was diagnosed six years ago.
A court appointed social worker told the court that the teen does not understand his diagnosis and treatment plan, the Times of Israel reported.
“The hospital has treated the boy for more than a year now, with all of the hospital staff investing unlimited time and energy to save his life – including repeated applications to the welfare authorities and the court,” the hospital said in a statement.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
