End-of-Life in Judaism #8: Cremation

The Times of Israel

"A burning question"

How is it that a mere 70 years after the Holocaust, a full one-third of American Jews are opting for cremation?

By RENEE GHERT-ZAND 19 July 2012, 1:55 pm

The Jewish Exponent

Cemetery Ad Stirs Up a Stinging Controversy

By dmichaels

February 8, 2013

Although he sensed potential provocation, the general manager of a local Jewish cemetery said he never imagined that his full-page advertisement touting cremation as an alternative to burial would cause such a backlash.

"Did you know … Jewish people are being cremated?" blared the banner in the full-page advertisement for Roosevelt Memorial Park in Trevose in the Oct. 28 issue of the Jewish Exponent.

But in a barrage of letters and calls to the cemetery, as well as to the Exponent, several rabbis and Holocaust survivors expressed outrage that Roosevelt would promote something that's considered taboo in Jewish tradition, both because of Jewish law and the association the process has with Nazi death camps.

David Gordon, the cemetery's manager, said that his intention was not to condone the practice, but to encourage Jews who consider cremation to be memorialized in some Jewish context.

"I wasn't advocating for cremation in the least," said Gordon.

The controversy highlighted a practice that, while contrary to Jewish law, has become more common among Jews as it has gained acceptance in mainstream America.

Until the end of the 19th century, the practice of cremation was extremely rare in this country, but that has changed dramatically. By 1999, 25 percent of the deceased in the United States were cremated, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. By 2009, that figure had climbed to 37 percent.

The trend has clearly had an impact on the Jewish community. Locally, somewhere between 10 percent and 13 percent of the Jewish dead are cremated, according to several funeral home and cemetery directors.

Gordon said that people have given a variety of reasons for choosing cremation, from not liking the idea of lying in the ground after death to a sense that it's a wiser use of limited space in the world.

But according to Samuel Brodsky, a supervisor at Joseph Levine & Sons, the decision is often "strictly economic. Cremation is appreciably less expensive."

Cremation can cost as little as $1,000. While costs for traditional burial vary widely, it routinely runs upward of $10,000.

The Torah itself does not explicitly forbid cremation, but in-ground burial was the norm in ancient Israel, and rabbinic rulings have forbidden cremation. Each denomination has a slightly different take on the practice.

Some Orthodox Jews believe that the dead will be revived when the Messianic age dawns, so bodies must be buried intact. Rabbi Yonah Gross, of Congregation Beth Hamedrosh in Wynnewood said that a body is considered to contain the name of God, like a Torah scroll.

Orthodox rabbis do not officiate at funeral services where a cremation is involved. However, according to the Orthodox Union, there has been some debate over whether it's permissible for ashes to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

The Conservative movement considers cremation a violation of Jewish law. But according to a 1986 ruling issued by the Rabbinical Assembly, if a family chooses cremation, a Conservative rabbi is permitted to officiate at a chapel memorial service, as long as the body of the deceased is present in the room. That clearly rules out officiating at the burial of ashes.

'Trying to Help' in Ways Rabbis Can
Conservative Rabbi Neil Cooper of Temple Beth Hillel/Beth El of Wynnewood said he has officiated at pre-cremation services and likens the movement's approach to its take on intermarriage. Conservative rabbis are prohibited from officiating at an interfaith wedding, but not from counseling the couple before and after matrimony.

"Even though we may not be able to assist you in all of the non-traditional things you are doing, we are trying to help in all the ways that we can," he said.

Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis teach that cremation is contrary to Jewish tradition, and are expected to discourage families from taking that route. But clergy from both denominations are afforded much broader latitude.

For example, Reform rabbis do not require a body, or even the ashes, to be present in order to conduct a memorial service. Some Reform rabbis will conduct a graveside service for the burial of ashes.

Rabbi Robert Leib of Old York Road Temple-Beth Am in Abington said that he never asks a family whether or not they plan to have the ashes present at a service. He's been performing ceremonies involving cremation since the 1980s, when he was serving a liberal congregation in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was born.

"I, as a rabbi, have no right to tamper with or amend the last will and testament of an individual," said the Reform rabbi.

But Leib said he understood why many in the community find cremation objectionable and were disturbed by the Roosevelt ad.

Regret for Emotional Reactions
In a response to the ad, Rabbi Lisa Malik of Suburban Jewish Community Center-B'nai Aaron of Havertown, said: "In this post-Holocaust era, within a few weeks of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, how could any Jew, in good conscience, sponsor an ad that encourages the burning of Jewish bodies in ovens?"

Manya Perel, an 86-year-old resident of the Northeast who said she survived eight concentration camps, called Gordon directly, as well as the Exponent, and said that seeing the advertisement has made many in the survivor community "feel we are again under the power of Hitler and the Nazis."

'Arson' at Tel Aviv crematorium

A commercial crematorium in Israel has been heavily damaged by fire, hours after its secret location was revealed in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper.

The crematorium near Tel Aviv opened two years ago to fierce criticism from Israel's orthodox community.

Most Jews believe Jews should be buried according to religious tradition, not cremated.

Police found signs of forced entry at the site and believe Wednesday's fire was started deliberately.

Earlier in the day, an ultra-orthodox newspaper had published the location of the Alei Shalechet crematorium.

The site's owners had kept its exact location secret, fearing possible attacks from religious groups.

American Reform Responsa #100, 1891

Though some might have considered the burying of the dead merely as a minhag (a custom), not as a mitzvah (an explicit law), it is certain that this minhag was very deeply rooted and was consecrated in the consciousness of the people, and such a minhag, such an unwritten law, is - according to very ancient Jewish legal principles - superior to the written law, and even supersedes it ("Haminhag mevatel et hahalacha"). It is further certain that since the eighth century all authorities, without exception, agree that kevura is one of the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Torah. The first one who specified the six hundred thirteen commandments (which, according to a dictum of Rabbi Simlai, are prescribed in the Torah) was R. Simon of Kahira, and in his enumeration of the same he included also "likbor et hametim" (Halachot Gedolot, ed. Hildesheimer, p. 13).

Melamed Le-Ho'il, Yoreh Deah 114:2

It is certainly prohibited to burn a Jewish body after he has passed away, and this is for two reasons:

1. Because by doing this you will have nullified a positive mitzvah, as the Torah states: "Rather you shall surely bury him on that day." And it doesn't matter if you have the ashes; even if you are obligated to bury the ashes, you are no longer able to fulfill the mitzvah of burial, because when the Torah says to bury a body, it means to bury the entire body.

2. It is prohibited to burn a human body, because we see from the Torah and the Talmud that it is a great disgrace to the body to burn it. As we see in the verse in the prophet Amos, the story in tractate Sanhedrin about Yehoyakim's skull and that the sages of the Talmud allow us to violate Shabbat to remove a body from a burning building.

Achiezer 3:72 (R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksy)

According to the Beit Yitzchak, the reason is that the mitzvah of burial is something our great ancestors have involved themselves in, and one who buries their deceased has faith in the revival of the dead. And if one burns a body, it is as if he denies God's ability to bring back the dead.