metro
Tet aff wko are ktins yT come and eat.'
Help ensure that everyone in our community
has a fulfilling Passover by feeding families in need.
Yad Ezra and Moies Chetim will use your donation to purchase
Passover food to distribute to local vulnerable families.
Shabbat Memorials?
Birmingham Temple's Saturday
memorial service sparks controversy.
Barbara Lewis
Contributing Writer
ack Rowens of Southfield died
on Saturday, Jan. 11, at age 96.
His widow, Marilyn, and his
children, Bradley and Tracey, planned
a memorial service for him at the
Birmingham Temple a week later.
They had no idea their plans would
spark controversy among the commu-
nity's rabbis.
Birmingham Temple, the area's only
Humanistic Judaism congregation, has
done Saturday memorials in the past
— but no one knew about them except
the people involved.
Jack Rowens' service, in contrast,
was announced on the website of the
Dorfman Chapel, one of the Detroit
community's three Jewish funeral
homes, and also appeared in his JN
obituary.
At the Feb. 24 meeting of the
Michigan Board of Rabbis, Saturday
funerals were an agenda item. The rabbi
who brought up the issue felt some anxi-
ety that the community would now feel
this was an acceptable practice.
But Birmingham Temple Rabbi
Jeffrey Falick told the JN that his congre-
gation's practices have no relation to or
affect on other streams of Judaism.
j
Passover ToodTaeLf...
+ Over 1,200 families will receive a
*I
holiday package
❖ Packages include all the food items
Yad Ezra
needed to celebrate a Seder.
+ Over 150 volunteers give their time
and energy to sort, package and deliver food packages.
Feeding Hungry Jewish Forrylies
It
❑
1 case of chicken
$110.00
❑
1 case of cake mix
$ 48.00
❑
1 case of matza
$ 48.00
❑
1 case of gefilte fish
$ 55.00
❑
1 case of grape juice
$ 36.00
❑
1 case of eggs
$ 45.00
❑
1 case of horseradish
$ 18.00
❑
1 case of soup/matza ball mix
$ 23.00
❑
Assorted appropriate fresh produce
$ 36.00
J Seder Package for a family of five
❑ Seder packages for 10 small families
] Seder packages for 20 small families
of
$ 72.00
$360.00
$720.00
Enclosed is my check in the amount of $
for
cases of
Passover food as a tax-deductible contribution to Yad Ezra to
help families in need.
Please make out check
and mail to:
Yad Ezra/Moles Chetim
Appeal
2850 W. 11 Mile Road
Berkley, MI 48072
name:
address:
city/state/zip:
phone: (
)
email:
Or, you may charge your contribution to your VISA, MasterCard, Discover or
American Express.
(Suggested minimum donation for charges - $18.00)
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1903910
14 April 3 • 2014
Jewish Funerals
A funeral service is one at which the
body of the deceased is present. If
there is no body, it is considered a
memorial service.
In Jewish tradition, funerals are never
held on Shabbat (Saturday) or Yom
Kippur, when performing any kind of
work — such as burying a body — is
strictly forbidden. Memorial services are
not held on Shabbat because the Sabbath
should not be a time of mourning.
Those who observe the traditional
shivah, the seven-day mourning period
after a funeral, get up from mourning
during Shabbat and come to the syna-
gogue to say Kaddish, the memorial
prayer, instead of doing it at home. On
Shabbat, they do not wear the cloth-
ing they ripped as a sign of mourning
(or, as is more common today, the torn
black ribbon on a pin that identifies a
mourner).
As a Humanistic congregation, the
Birmingham Temple rejects the author-
ity of Jewish law and any traditions that
don't mesh with its humanistic philoso-
phy. Temple staff members say funerals
Marilyn and the late Jack Rowens
and memorial services have been done
on Saturday in the past, and no one
seemed to mind.
What may have been different this
time is that the service was announced
publicly on the website of a Jewish
funeral home.
David Techner, funeral director at Ira
Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, recalls
what happened several years ago when
the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press
printed an obituary for a prominent
community member that said — erro-
neously — that the funeral would be
held at the Ira Kaufman Chapel on
Saturday.
"The entire community freaked:'
Techner said. He fielded at least 30
irate phone calls. The newspapers soon
printed a correction apologizing for the
error and for the embarrassment it had
caused to the funeral home.
Times may have changed. Jonathan
Dorfman of the Dorfman Chapel in
Farmington Hills said the only response
he got to the announcement of the
Rowens service was one email asking if
they now did services on Saturday.
He said the Dorfman Chapel was not
involved in arrangements for the ser-
vice, nor did they handle the final dis-
position — Jack Rowens was cremated
— on the Sabbath.
"We would not do a Saturday service
at our chapel; he said.
Neither would the other two Jewish
funeral homes, Ira Kaufman or Hebrew
Memorial Chapel in Oak Park.
Techner said he once had a request
for a burial in a small town in Ohio
where the cemetery was closed on
Sunday. The family wanted to do the