The sad, complicated death and burial of Grigoriy Bosenzon more than two years ago continues to provoke disturbing questions about family wishes and Jewish values.

“I think everyone thought that they were doing the right thing to honor this man,” said Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation, who was consulted on Bosenzon’s situation after he died a widower Sept. 20, 2012, in a nursing home at age 93.

“It’s just that everybody had a different idea of what to do: the Orthodox community, the people handling the body, the family [in Ukraine]. All were different,” Talve continued, outlining the dimensions of this complex story. “We don’t know what his wishes were. It could be his wishes changed. We don’t know.”

Bosenzon’s remains were buried more than a month after he died, on Oct. 24, 2012, in Chevra Kadisha Cemetery, 1601 North and South Road. Today, his grave has no stone; it is marked by a small rectangular metal frame surrounding his name. The dirt remains bare with no grass.

A mathematics and science teacher, Bosenzon came to St. Louis in 1993, according to a sworn statement Oct. 15, 2012, by Anna Lanis, a Russian-speaking resident of University City. Her father had been president of the Russian Association of World War Veterans of St. Louis, as was Bosenzon.

As it turns out in this story, Lanis’ affidavit is significant. She is the witness whose testimony changed what was to happen to Bosenzon’s body.

Earlier in the year he died, on Feb. 24, 2012, Bosenzon purchased a plan from American Mortuary and Cremation Service that assured his body would be cremated and his remains mailed to Ukraine, where they were to be buried next to his first wife. 

In early September, however, according to Lanis’ affidavit, Bosenzon had second thoughts. After Lanis got in touch with him at his request, she said in her sworn statement, he told her he “was forced to sign some papers authorizing his cremation because he had no money and could not afford a burial.”

Lanis goes on to state, in her affidavit, that Bosenzon showed her that he was mentally adept by solving a numbers puzzle. 

“Mr. Bosenzon impressed me as a person who possessed a clear and intelligent mind,” Lanis stated, adding that Bosenzon old her that without any money, he had no choice but to accept cremation.

“However,” Lanis said in her affidavit, “he said he did not want to be ‘burned.’ ”

Orthodox Jewish law prohibits cremation. Genesis 3:19 states: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” This point is reinforced in the Torah by Deuteronomy 21:23: “… you must bury him,” writes Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin in “To Be a Jew.” 

However, Talve said, “As a Reform rabbi, I have no problem with cremation. I just wanted his family’s wishes to be honored.”

Bosenzon’s granddaughter Svetlana Kolona, who lives in Sebastopol in the Crimea that was part of Ukraine until last year when Russia took it over, still wants her grandfather’s remains removed from the cemetery, cremated and sent to her so she can bury his ashes there, next to her grandmother, Guta Bosenzon.

In a recent email, the Jewish Light asked her whether she would accept shipping his remains without cremation.

She replied within 24 hours: “[M]y family and I want and insist on removing the remains from the grave, cremation and shipping to Ukraine as it was a will of my decedent grandfather.

“And it doesn’t matter for us what anybody besides our family thinks about it. The burial society and Jewish society may bury their relatives as they want according to their laws. But we demand to bury our relative according to our decision and especially according to the will of decedent person who stated clear what to do with his remains after his death.”

Stephen M. Glassman is a lawyer in Clayton whose wife, Pnina Glassman, is president of the Ahavas Chesed Society, a local volunteer organization whose members follow Jewish law in preparing the dead for burial. She referred questions regarding Bosenzon to her husband. 

In a letter to the Light, Glassman wrote that “…[n]one of Mr. Bosenzon’s relatives has ever taken legal action against a St. Louis Jewish organization — funeral home, burial society, or cemetery — challenging the validity of his burial.”

He wrote that nearly a year after Bosenzon’s burial, his daughter in Russia, who had not seen her father in 20 years, filed a lawsuit against a non-Jewish mortuary company for failing to cremate the body. The suit sought $5 million in damages for her emotional distress. Her son did not join in the suit.

“In March 2013,” Glassman wrote, “after an inquiry, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors declined to take any action against either the mortuary or its funeral director.”

After payment of a settlement this year, Glassman wrote, the lawsuit was dismissed. 

Jay Umansky, the lawyer representing Bosenzon’s family, said the settlement was less than $100,000 and was paid by an insurance company that has assumed the liability of the mortuary service when it went out of business.

He also holds a court order dated March 5, which purports on its face to instruct the cemetery to allow the disinterment of Bosenzon’s remains and the transfer of those remains to a licensed funeral home and then to Umansky for transport to the Ukraine.

“We hope we can work this out,” Umansky said.

There are other curious facts in this case, although they apparently were not determining ones. For instance, Timothy Rader, who owned the mortuary company that went out of business, was a convert to Judaism, which he apparently took very seriously.

He stated in a long deposition that he would not cremate Bosenzon because he knew that to be against Jewish law as he understood it. He said he would have turned the body over to someone else, a cremation service, had Lanis not sought help from a rabbi who paid for the burial.

Rader also sought advice from Glassman, a well-known member of the Orthodox community.

Berger Memorial Chapel received the body soon after Bosenzon died, but then released it to so it could be kept in a cooler until arrangements for either cremation or burial were resolved. Then about a month later, Berger got the body again, this time for burial.

Richard W. Stein, the funeral home’s manager, said he could not discuss the Bosenzon burial except to confirm that he supervised the service.

When Rader found he could not perform the cremation as required by the contract with Bosenzon, he refunded the money to the family, he said in his affidavit. Umansky disputes that, saying a refund was never given to the family.

Umansky has a court order to remove Bosenzon’s body from his resting place on the western side of Chevra Kadisha and he has ample funds to ship the remains to Ukraine if the cemetery board allows that to happen. 

But David M. Korum, a Clayton lawyer who represents the cemetery board, said he sees no reason for Bosenzon to be removed from his grave.

“The cemetery association has to be observant,” Korum said. “That’s all it wants to do. It wants to be peaceful, observant and respectful.”

Korum, by the way, said that as a Presbyterian, he had to study the Torah closely to understand Jewish law regarding death and what should be done with a body.

“In the process of working on this case,” he said, “I had to go back and reread the first five books of the Bible. I wanted to be able to serve my client.”

Umansky, the family’s attorney, said he has extended a proposal to Korum and the cemetery board to exhume Bosenzon’s remains, not cremate them and send them to the family in Ukraine.

“I’ve heard no response,” he said.

Talve may have the last word — for now.

“It was very difficult,” she said of the situation almost three years ago, “especially for the funeral home, which didn’t want to see that body not being buried.

“It’s one for Solomon.”