Unfortunately, I was sitting shiva last week with my family as one of my aunts passed away. We spent most of the time having semi-Talmudic discussions about various Jewish laws and the topic of the wigs came up. You know, the ones they are burning in Brooklyn because they're not kosher.

Someone did bring up a good point. Would it have been so wrong for one of the rabbis involved to ask that the wigs be donated to non-Jews who could use them? Think of all the female cancer patients that would love to have an expensive wig that was otherwise destroyed. We all agreed that it was disgusting that they were burned instead.

Since we are mostly Conservative, perhaps we were missing some point of halacha here. If we were, I'd love to know.