BINTEL BRIEFI don’t belong to a synagogue. Can I be buried in a Jewish cemetery?
Bintel advises a reader who feels shut out of Jewish life — and Jewish death
A headstone in a Jewish cemetery. Photo by iStock by Getty Images
By Beth Harpaz August 29, 2024
A Bintel Brief, Yiddish for a bundle of letters, has been solving reader dilemmas since 1906. Send yours via email ([email protected]), social media or this form.
Dear Bintel:
I’m in my 60s and I’m doing some end-of-life planning. (I’m not dying — I’m just getting organized.) I’d like to have a Jewish burial in the cemetery where my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are. The cemetery is shared by a few synagogues, including the one my family went to when I was growing up. In fact, my great-grandfather helped found that shul. But I live 800 miles away, so obviously I’m not a member.
I called to inquire about buying a plot and was told plots can only be purchased by members who pay synagogue dues until their death. This could end up costing me 10 times the price of a regular burial plot. Aside from the money question, it is upsetting, especially as a single person, that it is so challenging to be buried near family. Should Jewish families be buying plots for their children while they’re young in case they don’t marry and then want to be buried in the same cemetery as their parents?
To be separated for eternity from the only family I ever had feels like yet another way in which there’s literally no place for singles like me in Jewish life.
Signed,
Dying to Get In
Dear Dying (though not yet!),
Your letter brought to mind a sweet scene from Thelma, a movie that came out this summer about an old Jewish woman and her relationship with a grandson. “I got a ton of graves, beautiful graves,” she says, inviting the young man and his girlfriend to be buried in the family plot. “You want to see what’s gonna happen to those you love.”
So, to answer your specific question, should families buy extra plots, I’ll say: If they can afford it, and if it matters to them, sure, why not? It’s a nice way to provide for descendants with no other next of kin; it eases financial and logistical burdens on the next generation, and it keeps the family in one spot for eternity.
And if a family ends up with more plots than people who want to be buried alongside grandma, you can usually sell them back to cemeteries, or sometimes to other plan-ahead types online. Just beware of scams and be sure to check state laws on gravesite resales.
Burial for the unaffiliated
Your letter got me interested in broader issues around death facing unaffiliated Jews. The good news is, you don’t have to belong to a synagogue to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. For example, Sherman’s Flatbush Memorial Chapel, a Jewish funeral home in Brooklyn, lists nearly three dozen Jewish cemeteries in the New York City area where anyone who identifies as Jewish can buy a gravesite. Prices at one cemetery start at $5,000.
But there are also cemeteries owned by synagogues, and those synagogues dictate the rules for those graves. “They have a right to say this is for members only,” said Amy Koplow, executive director of the Hebrew Free Burial Association, which provides burial services for indigent Jews.
So if you’re committed to spending eternity with your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, it looks like you’ll have to pony up — or negotiate a special deal.
Let’s make a deal!
Sure, you called the synagogue and the person who answered the phone gave you the standard answer. Don’t stop there. Let’s take a page from one of my favorite books, Herb Cohen’s You Can Negotiate Anything.
Contact the synagogue board president and request a Zoom meeting. Then lay out your case. Make a reasonably priced offer. Suggest they mull it over rather than decide on the spot. And be sure to ask how you can find out if there’s room in your family’s existing plots for one more body.
If they mention that making an exception for you opens the door to making an exception for everyone, emphasize that you are not everyone. Your ancestors founded the synagogue; you have no spouse or kids to handle your remains.
And while paying dues for the rest of your life to a synagogue you’ll never attend certainly sounds like something no one wants to do, think deeply about how much access to the cemetery is really worth to you. Yes, there are plots available through Sherman’s for $5,000. But a place in Brooklyn’s renowned Green-Wood Cemetery starts at $21,000, plus fees. Don’t base what you’re willing to pay on the cheapest plot you can find. Base it on the most coveted graveyard around.
You can also argue that giving a one-time donation to the synagogue now is better for them than lifetime annual dues. They can invest what you give them now. Plus who knows how long you’ll last?
Fitting in to Jewish life
Your letter also seems to be about more than where you’ll end up after death. What troubles you is feeling like there’s no place for you, as a single person, in Jewish communal life.
Certainly synagogues can feel cliquish and family oriented to the exclusion of other lifestyles; this isn’t the first time Bintel has gotten letters from people who feel left out.
To that I’ll repeat: Don’t give up. With the High Holidays at hand, check out all the shuls where you live. Go to sukkah parties, Yom Kippur break-fasts and Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Don’t forget JCCs, Yiddish cultural events, foodie and volunteering opportunities, as well as Jewish political groups that suit your point of view.
I follow many Jewish groups on Facebook that organize local holiday celebrations, political postcard-writing sessions and other activities. I’m certain there’s a place for you in Jewish life if you look hard enough.
And if your efforts to negotiate a gravesite deal fail — despite my (and Herb Cohen’s) best advice — then buy a plot in a different Jewish cemetery near your parents or wherever you live. A clever epitaph might provide the last laugh:
Here lies a woman who had no kin.
She’s buried alone. But that’s no sin.
Do you have a problem Bintel can help solve, or an opinion about this column? We’d love to hear from you. Email [email protected].
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