Goodbye, YouTube. Hello, EulogyTube.
After hearing sick or aged family members lament for the umpteenth time that they were unable to attend a loved one’s funeral, Dan Mandel decided to do something about it.
Last week the director of Vallejo’s Mandel Funeral Services introduced live Internet funeral broadcasts.
“Technologically, it isn’t that complicated. We invented it from scratch,” he said.
“You go to our Web site, go to funeral listings, locate the person whose funeral you’re interested in attending and, right next to the time, click on where it says ‘Attend Funeral Live.'”
While Mandel is the first local Jewish funeral home director to offer such a service, he’s far from the first person to Webcast a funeral. A Google search reveals scores of similar services nationwide.
Mandel says he’s doing more than just “Webcasting,” which is to say he’s not simply pointing a Webcam at the dearly departed. He wired a digital video recorder to a laptop computer, complete with a mobile modem. He can zoom in, pan the crowd or even take the camera to graveside services.
He spent several months testing the service, investing “a lot of money” in the project. He wouldn’t reveal exactly how much, but says it was less than $10,000.
Although the Webcast is intended for friends and family unable to attend services, anyone on the Internet can click onto a funeral Webcast and send an e-condolence message afterward.
“I can’t answer whether that will or won’t happen,” Mandel said. “But it would be no different from someone walking in off the street to attend a funeral.”
The funeral Webcast isn’t the only innovation in Jewish funerals to hit the market. The New York-based www.till120.com debuted in November. The cleverly-titled Web page allows relatives or friends to create Web tributes to the deceased.
It all sounds a bit bizarre to Gene Kaufman, however. The director of Sinai Funeral Chapel said Webcasting a funeral is “not something we’re doing at this point.”
Kaufman said he had no idea about other Jewish funeral homes Webcasting funerals. “But when I go to the annual meeting this year, I’ll be sure to ask.”