A SOUR CREAM AND ONION CREMATION

Synagogue sued over missing ashes: Potato-chip can found in place of woman's remains in mausoleum By ROMA KHANNA

When relatives of Vivian Shulman Lieberman went to visit her final resting place in a Houston mausoleum one year ago today, they discovered that the cedar chest containing her ashes was missing. In its place, behind the locked, glass door of Lieberman's niche in Congregation Beth Israel's mausoleum, was a can of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips.

The ashes are still missing, says Philip Hilder, an attorney for Lieberman's two daughters. "We have been devastated," Marcelle Lieberman said this week. "We hope we will be able to find her remains before we die, to give us closure of some sort."

The strange disappearance led Marcelle Lieberman and her sister, Harriet Lieberman Mellow, to file a lawsuit recently against Congregation Beth Israel and two funeral businesses. Officials with the synagogue and the two companies deny responsibility.