chapter 1: A Brief history of Jewish BuriAl - Avotaynu

1 chapter 1: A Brief history of Jewish BuriAl The first Jewish BuriAl was recorded waiting for the skin to dissolve before in Genesis 23:19 when Abraham removing the bones for reburial. The buried his wife Sarah in the Cave of bones were then placed in an ossuary, Machpelah in the field of Mamre. or bone box, in anticipation of the Abraham understood that burying his resurrection of the dead. The Jewish wife as quickly as possible was a final acceptance of ossuaries was probably act of respect for her, for Jews believe based on Ezekiel's prophecy of the in a concept called kevod ha-met, hon- Valley of the Dry Bones (37: 1 14), ouring the dead, where an unburied but when the Romans arrived in Judea corpse is considered to be naked and they introduced the concept of ground humiliated.

2 The injunction to bury BuriAl in public cemeteries. BuriAl in Jewish dead with haste is given a lower cedar coffins is more hygienic than priority only to saving human life. disinterring bodies and placing bones Archaeologists have discovered in an ossuary. ornamented Jewish catacombs with Ground BuriAl in private plots hinged doors and gabled columns became common practice in Judea. The dating from the immediate centuries first mention of a Jewish gravestone surrounding the time of Jesus, which dates back to Genesis 35:20 where suggests that the practice of cave BuriAl Jacob set up a pillar (the Hebrew increased in popularity from the bib- word is matsevah, denoting a tomb- lical era through the Babylonian period stone) on Rachel's grave on the road and into Roman Palestine.

3 In the to Bethlehem. The desire among Jews Talmud Sanhedrin 96b (line 55) there to return a dead body to the earth is is a clear reference to Jewish cave BuriAl probably based on Genesis 3:19 where where Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is God informs Adam that he shall return advised by his Palestinian agents that to dust. In Israel, people are often not the Jewish catacombs surrounding the buried in coffins unless the body is city of Jerusalem can shelter his army: severely injured so as to facilitate quick their graveyards are better [more return to the soil. practical] than your palace! A medieval belief that a heavy stone The Jerusalem Talmud (Mo'ed helps to retain the dead (in case they Katan 1:5) describes the practice of have aspirations of returning home). likut atzamot (gathering of bones), a is probably a contributing factor in two-phase procedure of burying Jewish the tradition of Jewish tombstones.

4 A. bodies in deep pits (mahamorot) and Jewish version of this belief holds that A Practical Guide to Jewish Cemeteries . soil and stone add weight to contain Jewish cemeteries became the standard a ghost leaving the body. Talmudic for the Orthodox Jewish community. A. rabbis refer to a gravestone as a nefesh stone was no longer seen as a weight to (soul) as there is a Jewish mystical entrap demons but became associated belief that a soul hovers over the place with affection and respect. where its body is buried. Owing to the Rabbi Solomon ben Aderet supernatural association with the dead, (1235 1310) of Spain is one of the Talmudic rabbis ruled that, where pos- earliest authorities to add a layer of sible, cemeteries were to be situated at Talmudic complexity to BuriAl . He least fifty cubits (about 22 metres) from comments on a biblical prohibition the nearest residence.

5 On members of the Jewish Kohanim The oldest existing public Jewish (priestly family) coming into contact cemetery with ground graves is almost with dead people for fear of spiritual certainly the Mount of Olives in defilement. See chapter 7 question 26. Jerusalem. The mountain has been used for a detailed explanation of Cohens as a cemetery since about 2400 BCE, and cemeteries. initially by the Jebusites and later by During the Middle Ages, anti- Jews, Christians and then Muslims. It Jewish prejudice shifted from the is considered by many Jews to be the charge of deicide (Jews killing Christ). most important Jewish cemetery in the to the idea that Jews were bent on world because of a belief that when revenge against the Christian world the Messiah arrives from the Judean in the form of price fixing and usury.

6 Wilderness, he will come down from the Some unscrupulous state officials Mount of Olives and enter Jerusalem and even kings would restrict Jews to through the adjacent Golden Gate in unpopular professions such as money the wall of the Old City. lending and later threaten the com- In the Middle Ages, Monotheistic munity with assault or ransom if the religion canonized many of its beliefs debts were not forgiven. In this climate into religious legal texts with rational of mistrust and hostility, and especially commentary. Many pagan practices in Christian Europe, Jews were usually once attached to early Judaism and careful not to flaunt any good fortune Christianity were either incorporated to they may have enjoyed in their host the point where they became indiscern- countries.

7 Their synagogues often had ible to lay worshippers or they became plain exteriors, and gravestones were lost to Western society. A result of simple markers carved out of wood formalizing religious material, as far as or sandstone. The desire to create cemeteries are concerned, is that cave modest tombstones is also motivated BuriAl became associated with pagan by tradition. Proverbs 22:2 holds that practice and ground BuriAl in public [in death] the rich and the poor meet A Practical Guide to Jewish Cemeteries together. This belief is strengthened by or New Christians. The converts an ancient rabbi, Simeon ben Gamaliel, naturally attempted to balance a public who explains in Talmud Bereishit Christian life with their secret Jewish Rabbah 82:10 that we need not erect life. Conversos would go to church, monuments for the righteous; their yet they would quietly observe the accomplishments are their memorials.

8 Sabbath and Jewish festivals, sometimes While the Jews of Central Europe at low-key synagogues. In the 1480s, often lived with the threat of victimiza- political circumstances found the royal tion on both sides of city walls, their family unable to reconcile the double Jewish cousins in Arab Morocco and life of converted Jews, and Tom s de Spain were enjoying a relatively better Torquemada's fanatical Dominican quality of life. For Jews living in the order was brought in to administer Arab World, the period 900 1200 CE an Inquisition to expose Conversos became known as the Golden Age. In who practiced secret Judaism. The a time when Europe was in intellectual consequence was disastrous for Spain's decline and disease was rife, the Arabs Jewish community. Within a decade were building a great civilization.

9 Of burnings and torture, thousands of Jewish intellectualism made a major Jews were forced out of the country. contribution to Arab science and litera- They fled to the relative tolerance of ture, and the community had enough Italy and the Netherlands. good sense to present a modest face The Spanish Inquisition had an to their Muslim masters. Moroccan indelible impact on the psyche of Jewish graves were unadorned and European Jewry. Violent anti-Semitic lay horizontal instead of positioned acts were a part of life, but they were upright like many of their European usually reactionary and not the result of counterparts. This tradition is today policy. Of course Jews had been faced maintained in Israel, notable examples with conversion or death before, for being the graves of the prime ministers example in ancient Greece, but never of Israel on Mt Herzl in Jerusalem.

10 At the hand of a religious order with Catholic Spain lay at the crossroads such access to the royal ear. Jews across of these two vastly different Jewish Europe, even in regions that were communities. In 1391, about 100,000 relatively safe, suddenly felt hunted. A. Jews lived in the Spanish kingdom. close inspection of gravestones from the The word convivencia best describes period demonstrates an emerging crisis the Spanish Catholic grudging toler- in Jewish Diaspora (the Jewish world ance of living together with Jews. outside of Israel) thinking on the issue Anti- Jewish riots at the time were only of ghettoization versus assimilation. In resolved after a mass conversion of a pre-Nazi world, many Jews naively Jews to the shaky status of Conversos, believed that conversion guaranteed A Practical Guide to Jewish Cemeteries.