Jewish comedian says nursing home wrongfully buried cousin in Catholic cemetery

Comedian Elayne Boosler says a Brooklyn nursing home did not notify relatives of her 83-year-old cousin’s death and buried the remains in a Catholic cemetery, rather than her Jewish family plot.

Boosler says that a relative had attempted to get in touch last month with Dorothea Buschell, who was staying at the Hamilton Park Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.

After weeks of failed calls, the relative was allegedly told by the nursing home that Buschell had died, The City reported. Boosler says she then found out where her cousin had been buried and that the nursing home was asking for $15,000 to cover the cost of the burial.

“That’s right folks, they buried my Jewish cousin … IN A CATHOLIC CEMETERY HOLDING A ROSARY,” she wrote in a public Facebook post.

— JTA