Funeral Home Giant Agrees to Sell Jewish Homes in Washington D.C. Area
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Houston company that owns 53 Jewish funeral homes completed its acquisition of Stewart Enterprises, the second-largest provider of funeral services in the United States — but agreed to sell two Maryland Jewish homes to settle possible anti-trust concerns.
Jewish community members had protested the acquisition last month at the offices of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, fearful the price of Jewish funerals at the Stewart-owned Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home in Silver Spring, Md., would rise in the wake of the acquisition. Under the terms of a contract with the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington, Hines-Rinaldi allows for a Jewish funeral that costs approximately $4,000 less than the average funeral in the Washington area.
The Houston-based Service Corporation International will acquire Hines-Rinaldi under the deal. But the company agreed to sell off 91 properties, including two Jewish funeral homes in Maryland, to resolve antitrust concerns raised by the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee.
David Zinner, the committee’s vice president and executive director of Kavod v’Nichum, a group serving Jewish burial societies throughout North America, told JTA by e-mail he was pleased the FTC recognized “the SCI acquisition of Stewart would create too much concentration in the Jewish funeral market in the Washington, D.C. area.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
