About a month ago, the police in Moscow found the body of a deceased man in a remote area, with the death believed to have been caused by hypothermia.

According to local legal regulations, the clothes found on the body were thoroughly inspected prior to the body being sent for cremation, and an Israeli passport was found among the man’s documents.

The police turned to the Israeli Consul in Russia, Yaffa Illovitzky, and she quickly transferred the documents to the Shaarei Tzedek Jewish Chesed Center in central Moscow.

Rav Shea Deitsch, a Chabad shliach who also serves as the head of ZAKA in Russia, transferred the documents to the Department of Investigation of Jewish Identity at Russia’s Chief Rabbanut. A thorough investigation found that the deceased man was a Jew, born in Georgia, who had moved to Israel and had returned a short time earlier to Moscow, where he lived alone without any close relatives.

After an urgent request was sent to release the deceased’s body for Jewish burial, the Russian authorities released and transferred the body to the Jewish community.

The Chabad shliach to the Georgian community in Moscow, Chacham Avraham Alshvili, stepped in to assist by finding donors to fund the burial expenses, and a levaya with a minyan of Jews was held at the ancient Jewish cemetery in Malakhovka in the suburbs of Moscow.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)