When a Jew dies, trained volunteers will clean, dress and bless the body before it is placed in a coffin and buried underground.
But the ancient process gets a lot more complicated when the deceased is one half of an interfaith marriage.
“It’s a critical question: Why do a Jewish ritual for a non-Jew?” asked Carol Cunradi, a member of Congregation Netivot Shalom’s chevra kadisha (burial society).
It’s a question that Jews from across North America considered during the seventh annual Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference held earlier this month in Berkeley at Netivot Shalom. It was organized by Kavod v’Nichum, a consortium of burial societies, Jewish funeral homes and cemeteries.
On June 9, approximately 100 attendees spent the morning in three related workshops discussing the challenges that intermarriage poses to tahara (a pre-burial
ritual), burial in a Jewish cemetery and post-burial rituals (such as shiva).
Most participants represented non-Orthodox chevra kadisha volunteers or cemetery owners with increasing requests from interfaith families.
When the non-Jewish partner dies, the living spouse, who is Jewish, often wants the comfort of Jewish rituals made available for his/her spouse.
Netivot Shalom’s chevra kadisha determined last year that they would perform a modified version of tahara (the process of washing, dressing and blessing the body) for non-Jewish partners.
“People were openly weeping, they were so relieved to hear their loved one would be taken care of,” Cunradi said. “Our community has determined it’s our responsibility to lovingly and responsibly prepare the non-Jewish body for burial.”
Yet Netivot Shalom, and a number of other chevra kadisha groups, are still wrestling with how to perform tahara rituals on non-Jews. Many such groups have developed a modified tahara practice for the non-Jewish spouse: Some chevra kadishas will wash the body completely but not recite any Jewish blessings over the body, instead conducting the ritual in silence or while singing a niggun (a wordless melody). Others have considered using other garments to dress the body, or developing an alternative name for when tahara is done on a non-Jew.
But what happens after tahara is just as challenging an issue. As the number of intermarried couples grows, so too does the demand for cemeteries that allow a non-Jewish spouse to be buried next to their Jewish partner.
“As an intermarried Jew, I can tell you that burial rituals are so crucial to the Jew in the marriage,” said Rose Levinson, an Albany resident and member at Netivot Shalom. “It is at this most terrible time that you don’t feel broken by that which has held you.”
The group shared a range of stories about their communities’ cemeteries. In the Bay Area, most Jewish cemeteries and sections allow interfaith burial, though some have stipulations about the burial ceremony and tombstones.
Conference coordinators took notes during the intermarriage workshops, and intend to compile the information on their Web site, www.jewish-funerals.org, so it will be available to any synagogue or cemetery that is trying to meet all the needs of its community.
“This is so vital,” said Gary Webnes, who serves on the board of a cemetery in Richmond, Va. “We don’t yet have a section devoted to intermarried couples. But we will have to address the issue because the need is real.”