Last week, we buried my father in the Long Island cemetery plot that had been waiting three decades for him to arrive. When I recall my mother’s 1990 funeral, in the pre-COVID era, I can still feel the love that came from the crowd surrounding us, and the support I drew from the Hebrew prayers…
“Like I told you, it’s an honor.” With these words, Jimmy Breslin concluded his famous New York Herald Tribune column after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While every other journalist covered our nation in mourning, Breslin wrote about Clifton Pollard, the gravedigger who prepared President Kennedy’s grave. He made the small big, told…
My 93-year-old mom, who survived the Holocaust, died of COVID-19 in an assisted living facility in New Jersey on April 5. I found out she was dead from a text with the words Baruch Dayan Haemet, the Jewish blessing at the time of death. Only days earlier, my nephew called to tell me she had…
Read this article in Yiddish A New York-based burial society has applied for emergency funding as it races to keep up with steep increases in the cost of coronavirus-related personal protective equipment, additional grave openings and new personnel to arrange funerals. The 132-year-old Hebrew Free Burial Association, which arranges burials for indigent Jews, expects to…
When Rabbi Ted Falcon dies, plant a fig tree over his remains. Sorry, with his remains: Falcon wants his body to be composted. “I’m just trying to apply the principle of returning dust to dust,” he said. “How do you do that in the most productive way?” In May, Washington became the first state to…
Hundreds gathered at the University of South Carolina on Sunday to remember the life of student Samantha Josephson, who was found dead over the weekend after getting into a car she mistook for her Uber, The State reported. Josephson, 21, was last seen early Friday night after getting into a black Chevrolet Impala. Police believe…
Exploring what the Shiva customs in Judaism are
It’s no one’s favorite topic, but facing death is inevitable. While hundreds of books and articles have been written to help families deal with the emotional repercussions of a loss, many fewer resources exist to advise them on how to deal with the logistics. In our complex society, most people have assets and accounts strewn…
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