<p>I just learned that a friends husband died last night.
Not one of my older/ill friends either.
:(</p>
<p>They both are Jewish/Brooklyn & while I am going to help any way I can, I also would like to learn about what is the traditional custom regarding death in the Jewish faith-, ( but also if you are another faith/tradition, could you share that too?)</p>
<p>So sorry for your loss. </p>
<p>In the Deep South, and Catholic, we usually have a wake the night before, or the morning of the service. Usually, there is food available at the wake: coffee, cookies, donuts, finger sandwiches. Funeral mass is usually said for a Catholic, with communion given to attendees. Mass can be held in the parish church or the funeral home. Some say a rosary before the mass and/or wake as well. If one wants only immediate family at graveside, they will usually indicate a private service at gravesite in the obituary notice. </p>
<p>However, most large Catholic families have everyone come to the grave, especially if there is a family tomb used, and then follow to either the widow/widower’s house for a feast, or perhaps a family member who is gracious enough and has a large house to host the many guests. There follows a gathering much like we have at Thanksgiving or Christmas, where we catch up with family and friends we haven’t seen in years. Neighbors, old friends, coworkers, of even the most distant relative, contribute to the cause, bringing over cakes, dishes, trays of finger sandwiches, fruit trays, vegetable trays. Usually, a dutiful in-law will gather up flower cards and cards that come with these food offerings for the widow to write thank you notes later. </p>
<p>The widow is not expected to play hostess, either. Many times, she quietly goes to her room to rest, and no one is insulted. If it is a nice day and there is a yard outside, the children, even teenagers, will go outside and play, while the “old folks” reminisce about the deceased and other family members. </p>
<p>Even when my dear brother died, under very tragic circumstances, it was not a gloomy day. The grieving had been done while the funeral arrangements were being made, and at the wake and funeral service, but in the gathering following the burial, it was an almost cathartic affirmation that life does go on, and the knowledge that he was in a better place and that we would all see him again some day.</p>
<p>Again, I am so sorry for your loss.</p>
<p>A Protestant funeral is not much different from the above, except instead of a “wake,” there is a “viewing” or “visitation,” usually held at the funeral home. Often there is an open coffin at this event.</p>
<p>As for Jewish customs, these vary depending on how observant the family is. In more observant families, the widow may be “sitting shiva” for a week. But a lot will still be the same–food is a constant.</p>
<p>Another Catholic here- originally from the East Coast, now Houston. In addition to the above, I will add that there can be several evenings of “viewing” in addition to the “wake” which is held usually the night before the funeral Mass. Flowers are a traditional gift of respect and except during the season of Lent (40 days before Easter) are brought into the church for the Mass and then taken to the gravesite. At the gravesite, prayers are recited and it is often traditional for each person there to lay a flower on the casket before it is lowered. The family and guests are encouraged to leave before the casket is lowered. A Catholic wake, funeral and burial usually takes place fairly soon after death- 2-3 days depending on the family’s schedule and the funeral home’s schedule. The body is embalmed, so there is time to schedule the funeral a few days out. It is traditional to wear black as the widow and immediate family. Every one else can wear whatever they want, but usually dark and/or subdued colors. The priest will wear white- as a sign of the resurrection to come. For the Mass, the casket is brought into the church (closed) and draped with a pall- a white sheet- to signify the person as a baptized Christian who shares in the new life of resurrection. The pall is removed after the Mass. It usually belongs to the church or the funeral home. If the person was a veteran, the flag draping occurs on the open casket during the viewing and wake and at gravesite- not in the church. At gravesite, military honors will be given and the flag folded and given to the widow or closest surviving member. During the viewing and wake, the casket may be closed, if there is a compelling reason to not see the body.</p>
<p>As for a Jewish funeral- I can speak only of my own experience attending one. The body is not embalmed and in the most traditional cases, will be buried before sundown the next day. The body is encased in a shroud and placed in a plain wooden box- the only ornamentation on the casket is a Star of David. The funeral service I attended took place in the chapel at the cemetary, led by the rabbi. The casket is closed- there is no viewing of the body. The 23rd Psalm (in Hebrew and in English-King James version) was recited as part of the service, as well as other prayers. The group then moved to grave site, where after additional prayers, the casket was lowered and we were each encouraged to throw in a bit of dirt. The immediate family then stayed and hand dug the piled earth to cover the grave. We then convened back at the deceased’s house where the family “sat shiva”- this means they do not leave the home for a specified number of days and guests come to be with them. The rabbi started the “shiva” and then guests would come and go as they would. All the guests brought food for the family and guests. In a traditional family, the family will tear their garment as a show of mourning and the men will not shave during the time of mourning. One year after the burial, there is a ceremony of placing the stone on the grave- to show that the deceased is not forgotten. It is also traditional for Jewish people to name their children after a deceased relative- never after a living one. This again is a way to show that the person is not forgotten. (Please forgive me if I’ve gotten anything wrong here- this is how it was all explained to me by one of my Jewish friends).</p>
<p>I am not Jewish but the Jewish tradition has been explained to me as burying first (normally before sundown of the next day) and mourning afterwards (shiva) as opposed to the Christian tradition of mourning followed by funeral and burial.</p>
<p>Southern Protestant…lots of food brought by friends to the house. That’s when most of the visiting takes place. There is an open casket (please don’t say coffin…always makes me think of horror movies and no one wants to think of their loved one that way) visitation/viewing at the funeral home with a book to be signed by those who came. </p>
<p>At the house where all the food is coordinated (either the deceased’s home or that of a close by family member), there is usually one or two ladies (friends of the deceased/family) who step up and organize all the food, keeping track of who brought what/dishes to be returned/cleaning up after meal,etc. When my mother passed away, her two best friends came in and took over the kitchen so my sibs and I could talk to visitors. What a help that was.
A meal is served at the church on the day of the funeral for the family and guests who’ve come from out of town. After the funeral, family and friends gather back at the house for more food and visiting. It was not a sad gloomy gathering. There were smiles,hugs, laughter and lots of reminiscing. I remember thinking “Mom would have loved this get together”.</p>
<p>Jewish response. Depending on how observant the family is, the funeral may take place within 24 hours. In any case, it would generally be held within 48-72 hours. Again, depending upon the level of observance, there is the custom of “sitting shiva.” The spouse’s home would be opened up to people who want to pay their respects in the week following the funeral. Some people will specify that the spouse would be sitting shiva from noon-9 p.m. every day, for example, except for the Jewish Sabbath which begins Friday at sundown and ends Saturday a bit after sundown. If the person is observant, during the course of sitting shiva, in the evening, a short prayer service is held in the home.</p>
<p>Many guests will bring food to the home, cake, cookies, etc. but if your friend kept kosher, everything brought/sent to the home should be from a strictly kosher source. Often, groups of local friends will have dinner sent in for multiple days so that the family does not have to think about that.</p>
<p>Please ask specific questions if you’d like and I will try to answer them. There is a lot of detail in this. It’s very nice of you to take the time to try to understand. I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.</p>
<p>I don’t usually like to generalize, but I think I can say that you would never under any circumstances, regardless of how observant (or not) the family might be, have an open casket or viewing when a Jewish person dies. I’ve certainly never seen or heard of it, and both I and most Jewish people I’ve talked to seem to have an almost visceral dislike of the concept.</p>
<p>Sitting shiva is almost universal in my experience among Jews who are in any way observant. My father, who isn’t at all observant, didn’t do it when my mother died, although we did have the “unveiling” one year after her death. But my former mother-in-law did it when my former father-in-law died, even though neither was really any more observant than my father is. Friends supplied a great deal of food. And even though J. was only 8 at the time, he was allowed and encouraged to throw a shovelful of dirt on the casket at the gravesite, after the funeral.</p>
<p>I don’t know how universal this is, but when I went to the last day of shiva for a Jewish acquaintance, after the nightly prayers the rabbi explained that the next day he would take the grieving widower out for a ceremonial walk around the neighborhood, to symbolize that he was beginning to return to his life. As I recall, he invited interested friends to join them.</p>
<p>Friends advised me that I ought to bring some food, and suggested fresh fruit because it would be kosher.</p>
<p>My D1 BF gave us a fresh fruit “bouquet” for Christmas, I had never seen one & I saved all the stuff so I could try & make one myself.</p>
<p>It was great- ( but it didn’t fit into the tiny fridge in our hotel room)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ediblearrangements.com/Default.aspx[/url]”>Edible Arrangements® Fresh Fruit Baskets, Gift Bouquets & Chocolate Covered Strawberries!;
<p>I appreciate all the help & support.</p>
<p>ek4-again, depending on the level of observance, fresh fruit which is already cut up may not be acceptable. In an Orthodox home, I don’t think this would fly. In some observant, kosher-keeping Conservative homes, I don’t think this would fly. A small fresh fruit basket of un-cut fruit would be fine. (The key here is, what else is the knife cutting up the fruit being used to cut?)</p>
<p>Are you flying east to attend the funeral or shiva, or just want to send something to the home? If it’s the latter, I may be able to help you find a local place which would deliver something appropriate.</p>
<p>When I saw the title of this thread, I thought you had questions about how to get a body through “customs” at the airport.</p>
<p>If you are in the area and would like to pay your respects in person, you will need to find out what the arrangements are. Some families follow traditional Jewish custom – the funeral almost immediately, with “shiva” (a kind of open house or wake without the body) for several subsequent evenings. In this case, you are not expected to attend the funeral – indeed, you probably would not know about it until after it happened. You pay your respects by showing up for a while on one of the scheduled shiva evenings.</p>
<p>Other Jewish families are less traditional. They may wait several days to have the funeral, in which case you probably would find out about it in time and could attend. And they may not follow the custom of shiva, although there would probably be a get-together at a family member’s home or public place after the service. </p>
<p>I cannot even imagine an open casket at a Jewish funeral. It just isn’t done. In fact, some of my Jewish friends (I’m a non-Jew married to a Jew) find it difficult to attend Christian funerals or wakes because of their horror of open caskets.</p>
<p>Do you know if the family is Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox? Customs are very different. For all of them, however, do not send flowers to the funeral or to the widow’s home. I don’t know why – maybe someone else does – but I’ve always been told that’s a no-no.</p>
<p>Do Jewish embalb the dead? Is this the reason (or one of) that there are not open caskets? </p>
<p>I think no open caskets is a great idea. I think it is somewhat morbid to be lying there, dead, with hundreds of people passing by and commenting on “how good he looks.” I have never been to a funeral where people weren’t commenting on this. The dead are filled with fluids, waxed, plumped, and extensively made up. No, they don’t look “good”.</p>
<p>Observant Jews don’t embalm. Sometimes less observant Jews do, based on how hard the funeral home is pushing.</p>
<p>I know this sounds pretty weird, but I have seen some people who were ill for so long, that they actually looked better when they were laid out.</p>
<p>If you are not going to come to Brooklyn, then I would suggest trying to find out from someone what is an acceptable restaurant/deli that could either send food or even better --a gift certificate to the house. The family will probably be sent a lot of food that then has to be dumped, so I often send a gift certificate instead that can be used at a later time (after Shiva.)</p>
<p>Another perfectly acceptable option is to send a charitable donation in the deceased name. The family may have a charity in mind or it can be sent to any charity that you feel is appropriate. If you tell the charity why you are making the donation, they will send a card to the deceased family’s home saying that a donation has been made in the person’s memory from you.</p>
<p>Sometimes people will send a donation to the family’s temple or plant a tree in Israel in the person’s memory, too. [Jewish</a> National Fund|Tree Planting Center](<a href=“Error 404 / Page Not Found”>JNF Plant A Tree | Jewish National Fund-USA)</p>
<p>uskoolfish raises an excellent point. There is the potential that the family may be overwhelmed with “real” food as well as “nosh.” Sometimes the family designates a particular charity where they would like donations to be made and sometimes they say “make a donation to the charity of your choice.”</p>
<p>A question: If an autopsy is legally mandated for a Jewish decedent, thus delaying the quick burial, does this cause additional anguish for the family, or is it accepted that it was beyond the control of the family, and therefore more easily tolerated?</p>