In late August, The Sisterhood launched a series examining the role of women in Jewish mourning traditions. Grieving for a loved one is fiercely personal; doing so as a woman, guided by Jewish laws and rituals, can be comforting or restricting, depending on one’s experience. We asked you, Sisterhood readers, to share your stories. Many…
In late August, The Sisterhood launched a series examining the role of women in Jewish mourning traditions. Grieving for a loved one is fiercely personal; doing so as a woman, guided by Jewish laws and rituals, can be comforting or restricting, depending on one’s experience. We asked you, Sisterhood readers, to share your stories. Many…
Jewish life and death in Israel will cost more, starting next month, as fees rise for religious services such as burial, marriage registration, ritual immersion and kashrut supervision. That, according to an internal Religious Services Ministry document obtained by Haaretz. The ministry confirmed the planned increases, attributing them to “price rises, linkage to the Consumer…
In August 1963, “The American Way of Death” by Jessica Mitford sold out its first printing on its publication date and topped The New York Times best-seller list for weeks. Inspired by her husband, Robert Treuhaft, a radical Jewish labor lawyer who was an unnamed co-author of the book, Mitford brought a sparkling British wit…
Nothing makes the Twittersphere explode like the death of a beloved star, and no exception was made for James Gandolfini, who died last night at age 51. After news broke of “The Sopranos” star sudden heart attack in Italy, Hollywood rushed to express its shock and grief in 140 characters. Bye, bye Tony. We’ll miss…
The annual meeting of the Jewish death care radicals is no place for a funeral director. That became clear just after lunch on the second full day of the North American Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference, when an attorney named Efrem Grail unloaded on the coffin hawkers. “This is about a protected profession which…
Consolation is on my mind, doubtless because just the other day I addressed a convention of a truly extraordinary organization called Kavod v’Nichum, Honor and Comfort. They’d gathered in Philadelphia, and because I once wrote some words expressing my awe at their devotion and their decency, they invited me to be with them. They are…
Whenever I think of Senator Frank Lautenberg — who died on June 2 of viral pneumonia — the most indelible memory that surfaces is the August 18, 1996, National Democratic Party fund-raising trifecta for then president Bill Clinton’s 50th birthday. Imagine: First a $1,500 a head ticket to a Sheraton Hotel reception at with a…
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