Aliyah Blog #85: Living Cemetery Museum

Introduction

Innovation in cemeteries in the United States feels dead to me. Same old drab grey. In Savannah, Georgia they’re proud of their cemetery – which is weird to me because they have beautiful parks in the center of the city and the cemetery … it’s drab grey (unless you want it). Some grey statue of a girl is holding a bird though they moved that to a museum.

Whereas much of the world is moving towards cremation (which is far worse than burial for the environment), that’s against Jewish law. In Jerusalem there’s a cemetery of deep caverns underground and each dead person touches the ground on the far end (by the feet or head, I’m not sure … also not sure it matters – in Jewish law you … err … your body without soul need only be connected to the ground).

Israeli health insurance actually covers a basic burial though no designer cemetery.

Modiin Cemetery

I helped make a minyan for kaddish at the yartzeit (translated as: “I was one of 10 guys at someone’s grave 11 months after they died so his kids could say some praise to G_d per our tradition). No drab grey here! Nice walkway with railings and different sections on either side of the walkway. There’s a separate section for kohanim (priests … descendants of Aaron who didn’t mess up and lose their priestiness) and those who want to be buried to commemorate how much they liked Japanese micro-hotels forever.

Choosing a Font

It’s actually a big choice – at other cemeteries, just choose from one of one to three grey headstones, put some typical text on it, and you’re done. Imagine having to decide between Comic Sans, Lexend, and Wingdings until the resurrection of the dead. That’s a big choice.

While it’d be funny to go with Wingdings which is already becoming unknown … maybe Wingdings in assembly code so in 100 years, if you’re forgotten maybe, just maybe, you’ll get in the news when someone deciphers your code which says, “the translation is in that little hole at the end where you light the candle”.

(Let it be known … choose Lexend for me kids.)

Pictures of the art

Bury me here. It’s in Israel and it’s free entry for visitors. They just need to put a pool in … easy to take my kids to visit their great-grandparents when they were in the cemetery waiting room (“assisted living” they said) with a pool.