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Skyline & The Back Street Horns
State Rules
Suzanne Jolicoeur is cemetery
commissioner in the office of
cemetery regulations for the
Michigan Department of Labor
and Economic Development in
Lansing. She said the cemetery
holding company is actually CRS
Management, owned by Clayton
Smart of Oklahoma. CRS owns
27 cemeteries in Michigan,
including Woodlawn Cemetery in
Detroit, where civil rights pioneer
Rosa Parks was buried last week.
Jolicoeur believes that CRS is
trying to standardize its fees and
policies in the state. She said
higher fees for weekend burials
are common in the Detroit area,
where many cemetery workers
are unionized.
She added that the state's
authority is limited to monitor-
ing cemetery trust funds.
Jolicoeur said the CRS chief
executive officer for Michigan is
Wade Reynolds, with offices at
Roseland Park Cemetery in
Southfield. Calls to Mr. Reynolds
were not returned.
Representatives of
Congregation B'nai Moshe and
Congregation Shir Tikvah were
negotiating separately with
Oakview Cemetery officials,
where both synagogues have sec-
tions. Oakview, also owned by
CRS, is in Royal Oak, south of 12
Mile Road and east of Rochester
Road. Higher fees for Sunday
burial have been a longtime poli-
cy there.
Joanne Levy, administrator at
Shir Tikvah, said the congrega-
tion wants to get policies in writ-
ing from Oakview officials.
Sharlene Ungar, administrator
at B'nai Moshe, said the congre-
gation met with Oakview officials
in September"and they have
been very accommodating." She
said several issues, including
Sunday fees, remain to be
addressed.
Chapels Miffed
Jonathan Dorfman of the
Dorfman Chapel in Farmington
Hills was upset about the higher
price for Sunday burials and the
JN
November 10 - 2005
lack of compassion for the
Kossack family from B'nai Israel
Memorial Gardens.
"If you take over a Jewish
cemetery," he said, "you have to
be sensitive to Jewish traditions.
They seem to be more focused
on sales of caskets and vaults
than they are on people. And
people are being pressured to
buy."
Otto Dube, a funeral director at
Kaufman Chapel in Southfield,
said the interment prices at
Oakwood have always been dou-
ble for Sundays "and we object to
it also:'
Rabbi Boruch Levin, executive
director of the Hebrew Memorial
Society (HMS) in Oak Park,
agreed. In the rare case where a
funeral is held on a legal holiday,
he said, the charge is tripled.
Someone who died on a Friday
would have to wait until Tuesday
for burial if cost were an issue for
the family, he said. It violates
Jewish custom, "is prohibitive
and upsetting.
"Some of the Jewish organiza-
tions feel they are at the mercy of
the cemeteries:' the rabbi said.
"They don't seem to understand
the issue until it happens:'
HMS' Hebrew Memorial Park
in Macomb County has non-
union, gentile workers, Rabbi
Levin said, and "we try to respect
their holidays. We haven't had a
burial on Christmas for six years;
but when we had it, we had it.
The crews see that we respect
them and that this is not a regu-
lar thing."
As for Sunday burials, the
rabbi believes that the Jewish
organizations need to negotiate
with the cemeteries to rectify the
higher charges. Work shifts can
be arranged, he said.
Meanwhile, Sam Kossack's
daughters have their own
response. "It's a moral issue as
well as one of discrimination:'
said Marilyn Tomaszewski."I
told [B'nai Israel Memorial
Gardens] that they lost two more
people who would have been
buried there — my husband and
myself.
"But I'm sure they don't care'
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