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image - A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project

A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project. Made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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Tag: funeral

Kindness a blessing to share

I was crying in front of the computer screen during a funeral service livestream. Again. It wasn’t my first of this pandemic. Even if the person didn’t ostensibly die of COVID, he’d been ill alone, unable to see family for long stretches because of it. And, because of COVID, I couldn’t be at the funerals in person, which were all in the United States. In normal times, I’d be rushing across the continent to be at these services with my family.

The person being eulogized, Rabbi Laszlo Berkowits, was a family friend, and was close to my parents. I called him “uncle” as a kid. He and his family were always part of our family’s holiday celebrations and gatherings. I played with his kids at his house. Their phone number was my elementary school’s emergency contact for me.

Rabbi Berkowits (Uncle Larry) was my family’s rabbi. He was also a Holocaust survivor. For a person who spent his teenage years in concentration camps, including Auschwitz, my Uncle Larry’s positivity, joy and ability to find the good in others were amazing. He had an incredible, long career, supporting and inspiring others to make positive change.

At the funeral, his family and friends (including my pediatrician) talked about how my Uncle Larry felt so grateful for the kindness of others, including the kindness of strangers. Without that help, he wouldn’t have survived the Second World War. Without the assistance and loving kindness of strangers – in Sweden, the United States and beyond – he wouldn’t have regained his health, gone on to serve in the U.S. military or received a full scholarship to become a rabbi. He wouldn’t have had the opportunities that truly enabled him to make such a difference in so many others’ lives.

This pandemic makes me think about how important that effort, to be kind and to reach out to one another, is for all of us right now. A year ago, the CBC Manitoba webpage ran a piece I wrote, “Mom’s emergency granola bar is there when you need it – no matter who you are.”

The article was about how I try to carry around snacks (granola bars) for my kids, just in case they need one, but that, sometimes, the best option for me is to offer that extra snack to someone else on the street, who is hungry, instead.

The thing is, since the pandemic started, like many Manitobans, we haven’t been out and about nearly as often. I don’t carry around snacks now because my kids are remote schooling. We’re working and learning at home, trying, like most of us, to reduce the number of people who might get sick or die from COVID. On a daily basis, I am not physically handing out those granola bars to anybody other than my kids.

A week ago, I got the most amazing email from a single mom friend who is a grocery store cashier in a city more than 200 kilometres away. She works very hard to keep her family afloat. She’d been waiting until her break to write me: “A man came through with 25 boxes of granola bars. No judgment – they were on sale! Then, he tells me he read an article about someone and their child or children who handed a person a granola bar and it stuck with him. So, now he has granola bars in his car and always hands them out to panhandlers and people who need them when he can.”

I could imagine her hearing this at the grocery store, her jaw dropping in surprise. She told the man that we were good friends and that she would tell me about this. The man said to pass along that, she wrote, “he has been doing this since the week he read your article and to thank you! Simple acts of kindness are what is keeping him going these days.”

When I read her email, I cried. It had been “one of those pandemic days” – where the news, the work and learning struggles at home, had all felt so hard. We’re all tired of worrying, so concerned about our loved ones. In fact, I’d been feeling badly that I couldn’t do more for others, write more, donate more, while juggling things on the stay-at-home front.

Another email from my friend arrived. She’d mentioned this man’s purchase to one of the grocery store owners. He’d said, if she sees this man again, the store would give him a discount on these purchases. Then he printed out the story to pass along, too.

I felt so grateful to this anonymous stranger who was carrying around all these granola bars to feed others, and continuing this kindness when I couldn’t. I wanted to thank him, but I also respect just how many anonymous givers might be out there. It takes all of us to beat this pandemic. Next year, I hope to host my amazing essential worker friend and her kids for a big celebratory Chanukah dinner again.

I’m so heartened to hear that the kindness my Uncle Larry encouraged in others is continuing to be passed along. I carry with me his constant reminders to be an upstanding person who does the right thing, who helps others, shines a light for others, even if he himself isn’t here anymore.

My Uncle Larry would say, “Be the best. Be a blessing.” He’d add something like, “We never know how long we’ll be here on earth. It’s our job to do good for others whenever we can – right now.”

At his funeral, another longtime family friend, Sam Simon, spoke, reminding us: “Be that stranger whose kindness is a blessing to someone so that they, too, can become a blessing to the world.” I am sure the biggest blessing of all would be if more people took that to heart.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Posted on January 15, 2021January 13, 2021Author Joanne SeiffCategories Op-EdTags CBC, coronavirus, COVID-19, death, funeral, granola bars, gratitude, kindness, Laszlo Berkowits, lifestyle, tikkun olam

An unfair funeral

This article was posted on medium.com on May 20 with the title “Bouncing from a COVID funeral,” and is reprinted with permission.

I had a loss in my family this weekend. It was not related to COVID. Nonetheless, it has been an exceptionally challenging time to lose a loved one. There are no mourning rituals, or figurative closures or moments to console the ones who are hurting the most. There are no hugs or shmoozing or recounting memories or poring over old picture albums around a coffee cake and a cup of tea (you get the idea: insert any of your traditions or rituals here).

Loss and death are concepts I struggle with, like most people. I always feel like I cannot say the right thing and feel awkward in the presence of those hurting the most. I am not “good” at funerals or mourning phases. I generally show up, pay my respects, and bounce.

What makes losing life during this unique time in history so hard is that we are mandated to be socially distant. However, when death hits the one we know and love, it is so heartbreaking, I want to so badly be socially closer, more than ever before. I would not have bounced. I would have stayed and been present.

Today, at 2 p.m., I will sit on a Zoom call to pay my respects. I will send a meal to the homes of the mourners. My father will be one of 10 that is allowed at the graveside service. He will wear his masks and gloves and stand six feet apart from his sister and nieces.

This seems grossly unfair, for a person whose funeral would have attracted people counting in the hundreds.

I cannot show up at this funeral even if I wanted to. I can sit in my house and watch it all go down on a live stream. It feels so cheap and lame and gross. Not the tribute that this person deserves.

The learning for me – as we sit together, alone, living a socially dis-social lifestyle for the foreseeable future, what small acts of kindness, generosity, pay it forward, TLC and tenderness can I express to just one other person to enrich their lives?

When I close my eyes and I imagine the eulogy recited at the end of my time on this earth, I wonder, what will I be remembered for?

I challenge you: what will you be remembered for?

Are you proud of the life you have lived?

How would you want to go down in the books?

What is your legacy, big or small?

It’s a morbid thought – not a place I often go but feel compelled to address, given the nature of the planet and the nature of my family’s pain.

My heart aches for anyone who has lost anyone during this truly f*cked up moment in time.

May your memory be a blessing.

Alana Kayfetz Kantor is founder and chief executive officer at MomsTO and MOMFEST, and co-host of Moms That Say F*ck the Podcast.

Posted on May 29, 2020May 28, 2020Author Alana Kayfetz KantorCategories Op-EdTags coronavirus, COVID-19, funeral, Judaism, mourning
Burial society is holy work

Burial society is holy work

The consecration of Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster in 1929. Eliya Ahroni, left, shammas of the synagogue, with shul president Chaim Leib Freedman, who was also founder of the Vancouver Chevra Kadisha in 1910. (photo from Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia L.00306)

The organization that oversees three of Metro Vancouver’s Jewish cemeteries does not want to discourage anyone from planning ahead and purchasing plots right now. They do, however, want to dispel rumors that the cemeteries are running out of space.

“I’m not trying to discourage people from buying plots,” said Howard Jampolsky, executive director of the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board, “but we do have adequate land in New Westminster [for now]. We feel that we have probably between 25 and 40 years left in New Westminster of burial land available, based on projections and current rates.”

The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board operates Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster and a newer one in Surrey. It also is involved with the City of Vancouver in overseeing the Jewish area at Mountain View, the city-owned cemetery on Fraser Street.

Other Jewish cemeteries in the area are run by Temple Sholom, the Reform synagogue in Vancouver; Har-El, the Conservative congregation on the North Shore; Beth Israel, the Conservative congregation in Vancouver; and Beth Tikvah, the Conservative congregation in Richmond.

In an interview with the Independent, Jampolsky clarified the administrative structure of Jewish funerals and burials in the Vancouver area. Although other congregations have cemeteries, the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board is solely responsible for everything that happens in the preparation for Jewish funerals, regardless of affiliation or denomination.

The Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish Burial Society, effectively operates as an adjunct to the cemetery board, which is an independent organization originally created in 1929 under the auspices of Congregation Schara Tzedeck, the oldest and largest Orthodox synagogue in Vancouver. The Chevra Kadisha, which literally means the “holy society,” consists of volunteers who prepare the deceased for burial. More than three millennia of Jewish rites are embodied in the rituals performed by the Chevra Kadisha.

Beyond this most intimate act, the cemetery board also oversees the entire process before the service at the cemetery.

“We provide all the funeral services,” Jampolsky said. “[These include] the registration of the deceased, the picking up at the hospital or the home, taking them out to our funeral home, which is attached to the cemetery in New Westminster, providing the ritual preparation for burial, services of the Chevra Kadisha, which include sitting with the deceased from the time they come to us until the burial, and everything to do with the conducting of a funeral.” Rev. Joseph Marciano is Schara Tzedeck’s funeral director.

If the funeral is at one of the Schara Tzedeck cemeteries, the entire process remains under the board’s purview. If the deceased is to be buried in another cemetery, the cemetery board is responsible for everything up until they transport the person to the cemetery, where the rabbi and congregation take over. As a result, regardless of denomination, all Jewish deceased in Metro Vancouver receive full Orthodox preparation for burial.

Jampolsky stressed that one does not need to be a member of Schara Tzedeck to be buried in one of their cemeteries, one need only be Jewish.

The board, which is made up of eminent community members, is co-chaired by Jack Kowarsky and Charles Diamond. Diamond’s father, Jack Diamond, z”l, initiated the board’s current structure decades ago.

The Mountain View Jewish Cemetery has been undergoing a restoration this year, after decades of limited attention. J.B. Newall, the monument company located across from the cemetery, has renovated many of the oldest headstones.

“The headstones that are 100 years old look like they’re brand-new,” Jampolsky said. “It’s going to be a really remarkable place to walk through.”

In addition to the physical restoration taking place under the leadership of Shirley Barnett and a committee of volunteers, a campaign aims to raise funds for perpetual care to maintain the cemetery as it should be.

The oldest Jewish cemetery in the metro area – and the only one inside Vancouver city limits – still sees one or two funerals a year, Jampolsky said, despite the widespread belief that it is full.

Unlike the cemeteries in New Westminster and Surrey, which are fully operated and maintained by the cemetery board, the Jewish section of Mountain View remains under the ownership and operation of the city, like the larger cemetery from which it is separated by a hedge.

photo - The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board operates Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster (pictured) and a newer one in Surrey
The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board operates Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster (pictured) and a newer one in Surrey. (photo from wikimapia.org)

Jampolsky said a leading cemetery architect told him that the New Westminster cemetery is among the nicest in North America, in terms of natural beauty, upkeep and maintenance. Hollywood North has noticed, too.

“We’ve had movie companies come and want to film there and we’ve turned them away,” Jampolsky said. “We don’t need the revenue from that. We don’t think it’s respectful to the deceased.”

The board is a nonprofit organization and costs are covered by funeral expenses – $11,000 includes every aspect of preparation and the funeral if the deceased is being buried in a Schara Tzedeck cemetery; $5,575 if they are to be buried in one of the other Jewish cemeteries. The cost of the plot is also currently $11,000 at the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster. Twenty percent of all plot fees are set aside in trust for perpetual maintenance.

Families with financial constraints are offered discreet, compassionate assistance, said Jampolsky. “We believe that every Jewish person has a right to a Jewish burial, a full halachic Jewish burial that is like any other, and we’ll never turn back from that.”

Jewish tradition makes funerals not only plain in style and appearance, but comparatively simple in terms of planning, Jampolsky noted. Every Jewish person is buried in identical caskets, made of plain unadorned wood and no metal, with holes in the base to hasten decomposition and return of the body to the earth. There is none of the competitive materialism typical of the funeral industry, where anecdotes abound of families being upsold on higher-end caskets and elaborate ceremonies.

Jewish funerals are almost identical, he said, regardless of the individual’s position in life. The same care is given to respect the individual throughout the preparation.

“I really believe that we do an important, invaluable job for the community and that we do good and holy work, we do it well, every single person is treated with the utmost care, respect, whether they’re living or they’re deceased.”

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.

Format ImagePosted on December 12, 2014December 15, 2014Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags Burial Society, cemetery, Chevra Kadisha, funeral, Howard Jampolsky, Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View, Schara Tzedeck
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