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Jewish Burial Traditions, Part IIThis is the second and final part of Damian Lenshek’s interview with Rabbi Elchonon Zohn, the Director of Chevra Kadisha, Vaad Harabonim of Queens and Founding President of The National Association of Chevra Kadisha (NASCK). Rabbi Zohn is one of the leading experts in Jewish burial practices. Chevra kadisha is the Jewish burial society.
Part I of this interview was first published in the December 2022 issue of Catholic Cemetery Magazine.
Damian Lenshek: Can you give me a step-by-step? When a Jew dies, how does the chevra kadisha find out?
Rabbi Zohn: Okay, well, traditionally going back, let’s say a hundred years ago before the modern funeral home, the chevra kadisha was usually in the home.
People died at home. The chevra kadisha was actually the same people who would prepare the person for death. And we’d be in the home saying the prayers that are said at the end of life and guiding the family as to what needs to be done and so on. So they would know at that time, once the person was established to be dead, they would move them to wherever they would be prepared and then taken to the cemetery almost immediately.
In today’s world, the chevra kadisha usually works closely with the funeral home and they will be contacted by the funeral home. And the funeral home would say, we have such and such a person who died. We need your services – send a watcher, the person that stays with them, and also those who are going to prepare the body.
In the chevra kadisha that I pretty much founded 50 years ago, and have been the director of, for the last 40 years, we actually encourage families to call us. So they know which funeral home they’re going to be using, but they call us. We actually come to the hospital, or the nursing home facility, or the funeral home, or the home, wherever it may be. And we do the physical moving of the body into the hearse and then make sure that someone stays with the body in the hearse itself. That will allow, generally, for better atmosphere in the room, in the car – for example, no loud music played while the body’s being transported.
Prayers are said and it’s done with a lot of care. We are also very often advocates for the family at the hospital. So that the body is removed directly from the room and not be taken to the morgue. Okay. So it’s less movement, less cumbersome for the body. Also very often if a death certificate needs to be arranged for, we will advocate for that, that the certificate be signed properly since we are concerned with immediate burial.
So we have the ability to advocate for the family in that situation. Generally the chevra kadisha in most communities today, particularly in smaller communities, they are really involved mainly with the actual preparation of the body and not really with the movement of the body from the place of death to the funeral home. In many places, they will send a watcher. But the more total involvement is mainly in larger, stronger Jewish communities.
Damian Lenshek: Communities where you have a kind of a critical mass. You need a certain number of people to support you.
Rabbi Zohn: Yes. Also, it’s immediate. So you’re talking about people who need to be able to respond very quickly.
Damian Lenshek: What percent of Jews are given this? I imagine there might be some who just forego…
Rabbi Zohn: It’s a very good question. I will tell you that when I started in this area, when I became involved with this, which was in the early seventies, even in New York, where at that time Jewish funeral homes were a booming business, the percentage of Jews that were actually given this was probably 5%, maybe 10%.
The Jewish people assumed that if they went to a Jewish funeral home, especially if they were being dressed in shrouds, that this was done automatically. The fact is, it wasn’t. The traditions were not followed other than the shrouds, which people knew to ask for.
And so… it was never really discussed. Families would be told, “Of course, we’re doing this traditionally. We’re doing it with a shroud.” So I would say my work to a very large extent was educating the public, educating the funeral directors right now in our area. I would say depending where in Queens, now probably about 50% are given the full traditional rites.
Outside in the more suburban areas like Long Island, I would say it’s probably in the 20 to 25% range of the people that come to Jewish funeral homes. Now you have to understand that in today’s world, particularly with the rise of cremation, many Jewish people are not availing themselves of the Jewish funeral directors, they’re just going to any funeral home. Right? They have no connection to chevra kadisha.
Damian Lenshek: …and cremation is not a Jewish practice, right?
Rabbi Zohn: I need to be careful as to what I say. Traditionally, and in the Orthodox world, cremation absolutely is unacceptable, unequivocally. Can’t say there’s never been a case where someone Orthodox chose cremation, but it’s almost nonexistent.
In the Conservative and certainly the Reform Judaism world, which is almost not recognizable in terms of its practice compared to what Orthodoxy and traditional Judaism was throughout the millennia, they slowly began kind of capitulating to the trend of cremation. And so if the rabbis have said for the last 30 or 40 years, maybe longer, that in some instances that it’s okay, it’s very hard for them to back down. When the rabbis themselves, or someone in their family dies, they may choose burial.
They have condoned cremation, they’ve accepted it. And so it has caught on, and I would estimate, to my great disappointment and sorrow, that within the American Jewish community cremation might be as high as 50%. It’s closer to 60% among the general population, but I would say among Jews, it might be as high as 50% and the more progressive states such as California, Arizona, Texas (even though politically they are more conservative), there’s less Judaism being practiced in these states and there is a very high percentage of cremation, maybe as much as 60 or 70% of many of these communities. In New York, it’s probably somewhere in the 25 to 30% range, I would say. In the Northeast in general, it’s less.
In the Bible belt, I’m not really sure, because I know that North Carolina for example, has one of the highest rates of cremation among Jews. Very hard to know, but there are no really strong Jewish communities in the Carolinas. So that… that’s what it is.
But within the traditional community, chevra kadisha has grown and has really taken hold in many conservative congregations. But they’re probably practicing on a very small percentage.
Damian Lenshek: There is a similar situation in the Catholic Church. Before 1963, it was forbidden, no cremation.
It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle. In 1963, the Church allows cremation. They give a grudging permission, but it’s a permission. But usually, the only thing Catholics know now is, “oh, cremation is allowed.” And so they embrace it, but if you read what the church teaches, cremation is a very distant second option compared to burial.
Rabbi Zohn: In the Conservative movement, it probably began that way as well. I don’t know about the Reform movement, certainly in the conservative movements. It was a grudging “Yes.” The genie’s out of the bottle and it’s not only that, once the clergy has backed down, very hard to now say, “it’s not okay.” You begin to be accused of hypocrisy. You begin to be accused of favoritism somehow, you know, “well, he was a big donor, she was a big donor,” so that’s why they will give him permission. So it becomes very difficult to go back.
And that’s really where we are. You know, I’ve had conversations with people to whom I say: “Well, cremation is not the traditional choice.” And they will say, “Are you kidding? In my family? It’s been a tradition for three generations. Now we have, my grandparents were cremated. My parents were cremated. I’m going to be cremated. And the rabbi allowed it.”
What are you going to say now? It’s very complex, very complex.
I know that this Pope, I believe recently, made some kind of official a statement, that it’s only acceptable if the remains are buried in a consecrated cemetery, correct?
Damian Lenshek: Yes, in 2016 there was an official teaching about treating cremated remains with respect, and the necessity of burying cremated remains in a cemetery. There needed to be a statement because cremation is it opens up all sorts of abuses, retention in the home and scattering…
Rabbi Zohn: Totally disrespectful.
But I’m going to throw this idea out there, for people who want to keep the urn. First of all, I tell people, you know when you are at a burial. And you have been at a wake. You’ve been there. You’ve said your goodbyes, you go out to the cemetery and you bury them. You know, that is your loved one. It’s their final resting place.
However, when you get ashes, you can’t even identify them with DNA. Ashes are basically nondescript. It could be the neighbor’s cat. You would never know. Okay. On top of that, there is no life force of any kind, no living, chemical, no living mineral, no living anything in ashes. You can’t grow anything in ashes.
Ashes have no religious significance. They do not. The Pope might say ashes have to be buried in the cemetery out of respect, but there’s no requirement – certainly not biblically or even rabbinically – to have to bury ashes in the cemetery. In many cases that has no real legal significance.
I could sprinkle ashes almost anywhere legally. No one’s going to arrest me for it.
Damian Lenshek: In a national park, scattering ashes is called littering.
Rabbi Zohn: Exactly. So the point is: I was going to suggest that cemeteries offer to families that are interested, an urn of earth from the grave of their loved one that they can take with them at the end of a service, so that now they have something tangible.
So that actually has a lot of life from the earth, earth has a lot of living microorganisms, that same earth that your loved one is reposing in. And that I think could be just as meaningful.
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About the author
Damian Lenshek is Director of Cemeteries for the Diocese of Madison.
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