Trendspotting: ‘Til Eternity Do Us Part
by Debby Waldman
Reform Judaism, Fall 2009 / 5769, p. 11-14.
http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1504
ENTRANCE TO THE BROOKLYN HEIGHTS SYNAGOGUE
CEMETERY, WHERE NON-JEWS MAY BE BURIED WITH THEIR
JEWISH RELATIVES. [COURTESY OF LINDA SOSNOWITZ]
The man at the other end of Ed Marks’ phone was distraught. He’d asked his rabbi an off-thecuff question about burying non-Jewish spouses in the temple cemetery and the answer—“I
won’t do it”—had forced him to contemplate how he and his wife would spend eternity.
“We met in college,” he explained to Marks, a Cincinnati lawyer who had spearheaded a
move to bring twenty-three Jewish cemeteries in the area under one administrative umbrella.
“We fell in love. She loves going to services at the synagogue with me, but she also loves her
Christianity, and it would kill her parents if she converted. I want to be with my wife
forever—and we don’t want to be in a secular cemetery, where we don’t fit. What do we do
about getting buried?”
Such concern about the company you’ll keep when you’re no longer breathing may strike
some as peculiar, but truth is, most Jews want to be buried alongside not only loved ones but
with other Jews. There’s something comforting about knowing that we’re going to be laid to
rest surrounded by headstones embellished with Stars of David and Hebrew letters, as well as
the very people who once surrounded us in shul. And, as Marks puts it, it’s also comforting
knowing that the cemetery won’t be sold like a used car to a corporation that might dishonor
longstanding Jewish burial traditions for profit.
Interfaith families don’t have this guarantee. Although a 1963 CCAR responsum written by
Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof asserts that “we have a moral obligation to be concerned, when
needed, with funerals of non-Jews…especially when there is a special relationship or situation
involved” and that “we should not object” if a Jewish man who owns a cemetery plot wishes
his “gentile spouse or their children buried” there, the Reform Movement does not have an
official policy on the subject.
“Each community has its own rules, its own way of responding to the challenges of the world,
so what you get is a pastiche of many different customs,” says Rabbi Mark Washofsky,
professor of rabbinics at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati and chair of the CCAR’s Responsa
Committee.
Nowhere in the Torah or Talmud does it say that Jews and non-Jews cannot be buried
together. That’s because, from a Jewish perspective, a cemetery does not have the legal status
of a synagogue or a school.
Read through Genesis and you’ll discover that our forefathers and mothers were buried in a
variety of environments: Sarah and Abraham in a family cave (Gen 23:19, 25:9); Rachel on
the road to Bethlehem, her grave marked by a stone pillar (Gen 35:19-20); and Joseph in a
coffin (after being embalmed) in Egypt (Gen 50:26).
“You needed to be buried,” says Nili Fox, professor of Bible and Archaeology at HUC-JIR in
Cincinnati. “Biblical law demands that even an executed criminal is properly buried, as the
corpse is an affront to God [Deut 21:23]. But there is nothing that says you can’t be buried
with pagans, with Canaanites, or with any other ites. That seems in and of itself significant.”
The all-Jewish cemetery is a custom that developed in the diaspora. Establishing a cemetery
was among the first actions Jews took upon settling in a new community. Because
intermarriage was not practiced in ancient and medieval times, the issue of whether it was
permissible to bury a non-Jew in a Jewish cemetery did not arise. As the centuries passed, the
custom of all-Jewish cemeteries began to be perceived as binding “as a law imposed by the
voice of God at Sinai,” Rabbi Washofsky says. “There’s great reluctance to change custom,
especially if the custom does not appear to violate any major intent of Jewish law.”
Linda Sosnowitz, past president of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue (BHS), discovered just
how binding this prohibitive custom had become several years ago when she embarked on a
mission to purchase cemetery space on behalf of her fifty-year-old congregation. It took
nearly 100 phone calls to cemeteries from New Jersey to Westchester County to find a match
for the members’ needs. Cemetery administrators who answered yes to Sosnowitz’s first
question—“Can you sell [our Reform congregation] 200 plots?”—invariably said no to
questions two and three: “Can we bury members and immediate family members who are not
Jewish in the same space, and can we bury the remains of members who choose to be
cremated?” (For more on Jewish views concerning cremation see “Debatable: Is Cremation an
Acceptable Practice for Reform Jews?”
(http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1446) in Reform Judaism Spring 2009,
and visit the CCAR website (http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/reform-res ponsa/)).
Sosnowitz found only three exceptions. One administrator would let Brooklyn Heights
Synagogue have the space on a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” basis, an offer she considered deeply
offensive. A second administered a cemetery in an undesirable industrial area. The
administrators at Maimonides Cemetery in Elmont, New York fit the bill, offering to sell BHS
a piece of undeveloped land fenced off from the rest of the cemetery which could be used to
bury non-Jews with Jewish relatives. The requirements were in line with what BHS was
already planning for the space: bottomless grave liners, no burials on Shabbat or Jewish
holidays, officiation solely by Jewish clergy, and markers with Jewish symbols only.
In January 2007, Brooklyn Heights Synagogue purchased an area that could accommodate the
200 plots, fencing it off to create the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue Beit Chaverim Section at
Maimonides Cemetery.
Not every congregation has to go to such lengths to establish a cemetery. Temple of Israel in
Wilmington, the oldest synagogue in North Carolina, received one as a gift this past May. The
congregation’s own cemetery had been full for a quarter of a century, so members were being
buried in a nondenominational cemetery. Then, a number of months ago, two couples, Dotty
and Irv Freedland and Beth and Walter Pancoe, purchased a piece of land which would hold
approximately 900 graves and named it the New Jewish Cemetery. Temple of Israel received
a portion of land large enough for 300 graves; another third is being given to the Conservative
synagogue in town, and the last third to another Jewish organization in Wilmington.
“One of the first questions [prospective members] would ask us is, ‘Do you have a
cemetery?’” says Temple of Israel president Richard Mandel. “Today,” he responds happily,
“the answer is yes.”
In Boca Raton, Florida, Temple Beth El is also proud of its new addition: the final phase of a
mausoleum (see tbemausoleum.org), which accommodates almost 3,000 crypts on its ten-acre
campus, as well as 1,120 niches designed for cremated remains. The Beth El initiative is the
only mausoleum in the U.S. on temple grounds.
Before the mausoleum was built, members of Temple Beth El who sought out a burial plot
were on their own. Of the area’s for-profit Jewish cemeteries, two were owned by Service
Corporation International (SCI) in Houston, the world’s largest funeral services firm. In 2001,
both the State of Florida and affected families sued these cemeteries for allegedly overselling
plots, burying people in the wrong graves, and digging up and dumping remains in the woods
to make room for more bodies. The suit was settled in December 2003, when SCI agreed to
pay $100 million.
While work on the mausoleum was underway before the lawsuit, the scandal reinforced the
congregation’s belief that it is important to have one’s own place where families can feel
secure laying their relatives to rest. “Our temple prides itself on [serving families] starting at
the life cycle of birth, and, when the time comes to end that life cycle, you still have temple
ground that you’re here on,” says executive director Jan Catalfumo.
And because the mausoleum is so close to the synagogue, adds Catalfumo, “people who have
family there can go before Shabbat and say a prayer for their loved one.”
Non-Jewish spouses of temple members can be buried in the mausoleum with certain caveats
[voorbehoud]: only Jewish clergy can officiate at services, funerals cannot be held on
holidays or on the Sabbath, and any symbols on the crypts and niches must be Jewish.
Those who preside over cemeteries and cemetery committees say it is critical to establish
carefully articulated rules and communicate them thoughtfully. At The Temple, Congregation
Adath Israel Brith Sholom (AIBS) in Louisville, Kentucky, this lesson was learned the hard
way, after the cemetery caretaker noticed a new headstone with a cross carved into it.
The caretaker notified Rabbi Joe Rapport, who contacted the congregant whose spouse was
buried there. The congregant had chosen the headstone out of respect for his loved one, and
“didn’t understand how anyone else would care,” Rabbi Rapport recalls.
But people did care. While board members tried to be understanding about interfaith families,
some felt strongly that placing a cross on a tombstone changed the nature of the cemetery. “I
don’t think that anyone meant to say that a cross was an offensive image, but you have to be
able to appreciate that, for some people, a cross symbolizes something that can be viewed
very positively, and for others, offensively,” Rabbi Rapport says.
The congregant agreed to replace the headstone, but that wasn’t the end of the story. The
temple then conducted a study to determine other congregations’ cemetery practices. With
that information in hand, in 2004 AIBS published the fifteen-page booklet, “A Sacred
Pilgrimage: A Guide to Jewish Practices on Death and Mourning,” which discusses how to
interact with someone who is dying, whether children should attend a funeral, the role of the
rabbi, and—the last entry—“cemetery rules.” The booklet, with the cemetery bylaws and fee
structure on separate sheets of paper, is offered free of charge to anyone interested in
purchasing an AIBS burial plot. Those planning a funeral also receive a copy.
“The overriding issue when someone has died ought to be pursuing a path of peace, making
the situation better,” Rabbi Rapport says. “This overarching principle provides a good basis
for us to do what we can to be welcoming and supportive of families in times of need, and
still be respectful of the place and the other members who have buried or will be burying their
Jewish dead in the cemetery.”
Congregations can learn more about cemetery policies by reading the Union for Reform
Judaism guide, "To Everything There Is a Season: Congregational Funeral and Cemetery
Policies and Practices" (http://urj.org//cong/facilities/index.cfm).
Rabbi Michael Dolgin of 1,700-member Temple Sinai in Toronto spent years working quietly
with a local Jewish cemetery to ensure there would be space for interfaith congregants.
Temple Sinai owns space in a large communal Jewish cemetery that doesn’t allow for the
burial of non-Jews. In the past when an interfaith family affiliated with Temple Sinai needed a
plot, they went to a nondenominational public cemetery or the only other cemetery that
allowed interfaith couples to be buried side by side: Holy Blossom Memorial Park, run by
Holy Blossom Temple, another large Reform congregation in Toronto.
When the Holy Blossom cemetery reached capacity, Rabbi Dolgin and Temple Sinai appealed
to Toronto’s large communal Jewish cemetery, not just for Temple Sinai members, but on
behalf of all the local synagogues faced with the question of where to bury members’ nonJewish relatives.
“We had an excellent conversation,” Rabbi Dolgin says, “and as a result, the cemetery
administration surveyed all the organizations that owned sites in this Jewish cemetery, from
ultra-Orthodox to secular and everything in between, asking them about the perceived need
and importance of providing a location for side-by-side burial of interfaith couples. In
traditional Toronto it’s a controversial issue. They wouldn’t address the need unless they
could see that a broad segment of the Jewish community was supportive.”
Ultimately, cemetery administrators told Rabbi Dolgin that “there wasn’t enough of a positive
response to address the issue”—a reluctance the rabbi attributes to “an irrational fear that if
we bury non-Jews next to Jews, everyone’s going to run out and marry non-Jews.”
Temple Sinai’s cemetery chairperson soon learned of another option: a Jewish communal
cemetery in Toronto that allows the owner of each section to maintain its own bylaws. The
temple now owns space in this cemetery and plans to invite other local Reform congregations
to purchase plots in its section.
Concern for the burial needs of all Jews also gave rise to the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater
Cincinnati, Inc., a consortium of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox cemeteries in
Cincinnati which now owns and operates twenty-three cemeteries under a single
administration, with each affiliated cemetery governed by its own denominational
representatives.
One of those cemeteries, established in 1821, is the oldest Jewish burial ground west of the
Allegheny Mountains. Ed Marks can see it from his office window: it’s what helped inspire
him to work with the presidents of the city’s two oldest Reform congregations to preserve a
piece of Cincinnati’s Jewish history.
“We saw cemeteries that needed help,” Marks says. “We heard the call of our ancestors. And
[by doing this] I realized I could teach my children, ‘This is what Jews do. They take care of
one another.’”
The process took nearly twelve years. Some of the cemeteries belonged to synagogues that no
longer existed and had been maintained by trusts or by the goodness of their neighbors.
Others belonged to synagogues that were struggling to maintain them. Banding together made
them all stronger.
“We agreed to maintain separate ritual rules for the different Jewish traditions,” Marks says.
“But we have one crew, one administration, and one price structure. We handle the sale and
installation of gravestones, and because of volume we make them available at a lower cost to
the community.”
Equally important, they make sure that there is a place for everyone to be buried—including
the Jewish husband who wanted assurance that he could spend eternity with his beloved
Christian wife.
Debby Waldman is the author of two picture books based on Jewish folk tales, A Sack Full of
Feathers (2006) and Clever Rachel, out this fall from Orca Book Publishers.
Copyright © 2014 Union for Reform Judaism.