To Life!

S ta ff Pho tos by Ang ie Ba an

ON THE COVER

Why an increasing number of Jews are opting for cremation.

Elizabeth Applebaum
Contributing Editor

A

n elderly woman sat
across from David
Techner and made a
request unlike any he had ever
heard.
She was a Holocaust survivor,
and she wanted to be cremated.
The woman was Jewishly
observant, "her plan well thought
out:' says Techner of the Ira
Kaufman Chapel in Southfield.
She explained: all her family had
died in the Nazi death camps,
their lives burned into ash. This
woman wanted her body to be
treated with more respect, but
ultimately to share the same fate.
It was, she said, a kind of terrible
"family tradition!"
So she was cremated, and years
later Techner still pauses when

he speaks of her. Her request was communities in California,
Florida and Arizona. "More
"touching and sweet and power-
cremations are being done by
ful and moving and really dis-
people who don't have roots, who
turbing all in one he says.
' have moved to the South and the
The survivor's request was
Sunbelt.
extraordinary, but not unique.
. "Of course, there's another
Though Halachah, Jewish law,
side to that coin," Birnbaum says.
forbids the burning of a dead
"Cremation will deprive someone
body and, in the face of the
Holocaust even secular Jews have of ever coming back to visit a
grave. A person may not come for
mostly avoided it, cremation is
becoming increasingly popular
10 years y then suddenly he'll want
in the Jewish community.
Nationwide, the trend is defi-
nitely up, says Martin Birnbaum,
a funeral director in Syracuse,
N.Y., and president of the Jewish
Funeral Directors of America.
Who is requesting crema-
tions?
Jewish academicians often
request them, Birnbaum says.
And he's found the majority of
cremations take place in Jewish

to, but nothing will be there."
Fifty years ago, no one in the
Jewish community, however dis-
interested in religion, asked for a
cremation. But back then, hardly
anyone in the United States
was interested in cremation,
Birnbaum says.
"We have requests for crema-
tions from about 3-4 percent
of the people we see Kaufman
Chapel's David Techner says.

David Techner hears:

Wo one is going
to visit my
grave anyway.'

"That's not a huge amount, but
it's a lot bigger than it was just a
few years ago."
Jonathan Dorfman, director
at Dorfman Funeral Home in
Farmington Hills; says, "We don't
do many cremations, maybe
about eight in the last year."
The other local Jewish funeral
home, Hebrew Memorial Chapel
in Oak Park, will not arrange for
cremations because they are con-
trary to Halachah.
Though cremation is less
expensive than burial (the
range of services can be half the
cost) and some simply prefer
the procedure, the key reason
Techner cites for an increase in
requests for cremations .is, like
his description of the Holocaust
survivor's choice, touching and

Beyond Tradition on page 30

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Apri! 13 • 2006

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