THERE IS AN OLD IRISH (pick any ethnicity) joke about a good Irish Catholic who tells his priest that he wants to be buried in a Chinese cemetery.
The priest is aghast, stunned even.
“Why Paddy, you won’t be in consecrated ground.”
I know, Paddy replies, but if I’m buried in a Chinese cemetery, the devil won’t know where to find me!
AT MY AGE I am thinking about where my body will be interred, a nice way of saying “buried.”
There are those in my family who insist I be “planted” in “consecrated ground.”
Will I care? Hardly.
We know where the patriarchs (allegedly) are buried in a tomb in the now Arab-controlled town of Hebron. (It was a mixed town until 1929 when the Muslims slaughtered nearly 70 Jews under the eyes of the British Mandate.1)
We know where a number of Jewish holy men (and women) are buried.
Their bodies consecrate the land, not the other way around.2, 3, 4
We do NOT know where the remains of the Conversios tortured on the rack and burned at the stake by Tomás de Torquemada and his enthusiastic followers (down to the 19th Century in the Americas) lie.
If their bones were collected, as Conversios (marranos to the ignorant), were they buried in consecrated ground? The Catholics didn’t want them and they renounced (albeit many at the threat of the sword) Judaism — would the remaining Jews find a place for them in their consecrated ground? (For the record, while a person may claim to renounce Judaism as a religion, the person cannot renounce the fact that he, or she, IS Jewish. See http://tinyurl.com/y584jdvl )
What about the Jews of Babi Yar in the Ukraine? Buried in a then unmarked trench. Hallowed ground? It is now because of their presence; it was not before the massacre.
What about the Jews the nazis sent to the ovens or simply marched to a trench and machine-gunned their victims. What became of the cremated bones? Scattered to the four winds? Certainly they were not buried in “consecrated” grounds. Are there rabbis who would deny the burial of the remains of murdered and cremated Jews in “consecrated” grounds?
While the grounds ARE “consecrated,” they are not “Jewishly consecrated.”
There ARE Jews buried in the cemetery — I visited the South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Work FL and saw at least one marker with a Mogan David (Star of David) on it. Granted, it was greatly outnumbered by crosses and some markings I could not decipher from the road.
To get in, my survivors will still have to fork out for Haverat Kedisha, a “kosher” casket, and transportation from there I fall to the cemetery. Still, a few thousand dollars less than a spot at the local Jewish cemetery (and more for my heirs).
Taxpayers — and as long as America exists there will be taxpayers — pay for “eternal” maintenance of the property.
One thing about ending up in a national cemetery, there is little chance that anti-Semites will knock over only Jewish headstones. There is no religious segregation in a national cemetery.
There is a “Jewish” cemetery near my house. Part of the cemetery is demarcated for a local congregation. If you’re not a member of this particular congregation, you have to be buried elsewhere (in the Jewish cemetery). Never mind if the person faithfully made minyan morning, afternoon, and evening at the synagogue; unless fairly steep membership dues were paid, there was “no room at the inn.” I knew one such person.
I suppose I can understand the synagogue’s position — let’s not contaminate “our” part of the cemetery with Jews who are (a) not like us or (b) poor, which may also translate to “not like us.” The congregation’s management is very strict on the matter and it makes no difference if the person denied entry into the synagogue’s special area donated Big Bucks during his lifetime. Paid members range from “very observant” to “almost totally non-observant” so it is not a matter of observance that determines who gets in and who doesn’t.
I wonder if the people promoting the Jewish cemetery — but not in the synagogue’s special area — think that (a) God cares where a person lies, or (b) that God can’t find a Jew mixed in with others who served their country.
There ARE some things I do NOT like at the national cemetery.
Mourners are not allowed at the grave site as the remains are lowered into the hole. That means the Jewish custom of mourners — family and others — cannot toss a shovelful of dirt on the casket, a sign of respect for the dead. There will be no kadish nor tearing of lapels at the grave. There is a “commitment” area away from the grave site, but Jewishly, that isn’t the same.
I suppose that the whole burial process is not for the dead person but for the mourners. After 11 months, the survivors may visit the grave, regardless of its location (national cemetery or “Jewish” cemetery), but the survivors have their own lives to live and visiting a grave cannot be a high priority. The more time that passes, the lower the priority — as I think it should be.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I was close to a person who died of cancer. Her body was cremated and the ashes scattered. Aside from the obituary, it is as if she never existed. I find this strange since the person was fond of tracking down her antecedents by haunting graveyards. (I sometimes wander among the markers and consider who is buried at a marker and how they arrived that that place. Old age? Illness? Plague such as smallpox?)
Sources
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre
2. http://tinyurl.com/yxeklo3j
3. https://mizrachi.org/where-are-the-graves-of-tzaddikim/
4. https://torah.org/torah-portion/weekly-halacha-5771-terumah/
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