A Jewish couple in Philadelphia is suing a New Jersey funeral home after learning that their stillborn child was likely buried in a mass grave, without any markings, and without their consent. Julia Gross was in the 35th week of her pregnancy when her son’s heart stopped beating, according to a report in the Philadelphia…
An Orthodox funeral home in Brooklyn, where a video shows nine shrouded bodies stacked on the floor, is so overwhelmed that on Tuesday it called for volunteers with minivans and SUVs to ferry the dead to cemeteries for burial. In a message circulated via What’s App, Menachem A. Bloom, who works at the funeral home,…
Police are investigating an incident in which a 61-year-old grave in a Jewish cemetery was dug up in Hartford, Connecticut, possibly on Halloween. The incident occurred in the cemetery of Agudas Achim, a 130-year-old Orthodox congregation, and was discovered on Wednesday November 6. “We look this way, we see a big pile of dirt, we’re…
(JTA) — A second mass grave of Jews killed by Romanian troops during World War II was discovered in northeast Romania. The human remains were found near the village of Popricani, the site of a massacre of Jews carried out by Romanian troops allied with the Nazis. In 2010, a mass grave containing 16 bodies…
When Rabbi Ted Falcon dies, plant a fig tree over his remains. Sorry, with his remains: Falcon wants his body to be composted. “I’m just trying to apply the principle of returning dust to dust,” he said. “How do you do that in the most productive way?” In May, Washington became the first state to…
More than $30,000 worth of mausoleum doors and air vents were stolen from a historic Jewish cemetery this past weekend, the New York Post reported. Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday, authorities said, a thief took 14 doors and 75 air vents from Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery, in the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens. The cemetery…
A Jewish cemetery in Massachusetts that was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti last week received a $5,000 donation from a Muslim charity to help repair the damage. That charity, CelebrateMercy, has over the past two years given $115,000 to vandalized Jewish cemeteries and memorials in Missouri, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and Colorado, and facilitated the donation…
Four pebbles balance on the headstone of Rose Gitlin, signs of a Jewish rite so ancient its origins are unknown. The Talmud says stones root departed souls to the earth. They also last longer than flowers. The superstitious offer them as a protection against demons and golems. Above Rose Gitlin’s name, below the stones, an…
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