$400 for B'rith

A week after a son was born to her in Manhattan's Mount Morris Park Hospital two years ago, Mrs. Albert L. Lyman lay in the maternity ward, her husband sitting by her bed. Idly the Lymans, good Roman Catholics both, watched a man in a skullcap bring in a baby on a pillow, deposit it on the adjoining bed of Mrs. Shirley Lippman. "Mazzal Tov! Good luck!" beamed the man, rubbing his hands. "It was a fine b'rith!" Mr. Lyman took a second look at the infant on Mrs. Lippman's bed, exclaimed: "Why, that's our baby!"

It was indeed the Catholic Lyman child who, mistaken for a Jew, had just been circumcised by a mohel. In great agitation Mrs. Lyman arose, dressed, gathered up her baby, swept out of the hospital. Professing to believe that the b'rith made their child a Jew, the Lymans brought suit for $25,000 against the hospital and Hyman Bukanz, a professional circumciser.

Last week the suit came to court. Agreeing that it takes more than circumcision to make a Jew, Supreme Court Justice Bernard L. Shientag ruled, however, that a child has a right to an inviolate body, ordered that, for its mistake in identity, the hospital should pay the Lymans $300. For his participation Mohel Bukanz was assessed $100.

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