Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected a suit from the family of a transgender activist that was challenging instructions in her will that she be cremated.
May Peleg, who was chair of the Jerusalem LGBT organization Open House, committed suicide earlier this month. She had been concerned that her ultra-orthodox parents, whose beliefs forbid cremation, would attempt to have a religious burial under her male name. Peleg paid for her own cremation in March 2014 at the one funeral home in Jerusalem that performs the service, and filed a will with an attorney a day before her suicide and asked that he fight for her wishes if her family attempted to interfere, reports Buzzfeed.
After her death Peleg’s mother sought to have the will voided, claiming Peleg was not in her right mind when she wrote it. In court filings she identified Peleg as her “son.”
After her suit was rejected by a lower court, Peleg’s mother appealed to the Supreme Court which ruled that “the basic law on human dignity and liberty puts the wishes of the deceased at center stage.”
“We do not come to judge the wishes and the way of May Peleg, but only to honor them,” said Judge Anat Baron.
