metro
The Perfect
Family
Floor Plan
From kids playing to adults relaxing,
we all love to hang out on the floor.
But with all the activities of everyday
life, our homes can get messy.
Let Hagopian keep your home and
floors looking like new!
1 -800-HAGOPIAN
(424-6742)
www.originalhagopian.com
Book Online Today!
HAGOPIAN
Expect the Best... Expect the Purple Truck!
Oak Park • Birmingham • Novi
Utica • Ann Arbor
A Memorial
To The
Children Of
Our Dreams
CARPET CLEANING
Volunteers from Temple Israel cleaned
I
$109.99
2 ROOMS $5999
99
7' SOFA
$59
OR 2 CHAIRS 4041
5 ROOMS
some restrictions apply
RUG CLEANING
2
FOR
Bring your rugs to any of our
drop-off centers and we'll
clean every other one FREE!
Ask about our expert
rug repair!
1972280
BIRMINGHAM
BIRMINGHAM
up the children's section at Hebrew
n Jewish law and tradition, a
Memorial Park and unveiled its only
child who is miscarried, still-
born or who lives less than 30 memorial monument.
days is not considered viable,
and the family does not go through
Hebrew Memorial Park donated
the usual funeral and mourning
the gloves, gardening tools, soil
practices. They don't hold a formal
and flowers as well as water for the
funeral, rend their garments, sit shi-
workers, said Otto Dube, funeral
vah or recite kaddish.
director at Hebrew Memorial Chapel
But the deceased infant is still
in Oak Park.
worthy of respect and the remains
The group unveiled a new monu-
are buried with care in a Jewish
ment — the first in the children's
cemetery.
section — erected by Hebrew
Since its founding in 1916, Hebrew
Memorial Park. The inscription on
Memorial Park in Clinton Township
the marker, in English and in Hebrew,
has buried hundreds of infants in
reads, "Children of Our Dreams —
a separate children's section. The
You passed through to your world
cemetery does not charge for the
untainted by sin, so young, so pure."
service.
Kaluzny said, "Everyone there
The tiny graves are marked by
found the cleanup profoundly mov-
concrete frames — like those around
ing and meaningful, and asked
the adult graves but much smaller —
before they even left when we could
to prevent visitors from accidently
continue."
desecrating them. But few have
She said she is working with
stones or other markers.
Hebrew Memorial Chapel on another
Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny of Temple
Temple Israel cleanup date in
Israel said last spring she heard from
October, but some of the volunteers
a congregant and her husband who
have already returned on their own.
visited their son's grave in the chil-
"I also have family buried in that
dren's section and were upset that
section from my husband's side," she
the grounds looked unkempt.
said. "A few of the volunteers had
The rabbi rounded up a group of
family members there, and it meant
25 volunteers who visited the cem-
so much to them to be able to beau-
etery in July and spent several hours tify their final resting place." E
pulling weeds, laying down fresh soil
and planting flowers.
— Barbara Lewis
MARTIAL ARTS
#1 Kids Martial Arts Program
Kids Karate
NOW ENROLLING
Cemetery from page 8
2219 Cole Street
Birmingam MI 48009
www.bmartialarts.com
248 646-6608
1970330
Get into your 1st CHOICE COLLEG
BEST
you can be
and be the
Expert Pre-College and
College Coaching and Advising
including ACT and SAT Prep
Join the hundreds of elated Kovacs Connections success stories.
www.kovacsconnections.com
shelly@kovacsconnections.com
with
KOVACS
CONNECTIONS
134.645.3131
nizations of immigrants from the same
European town or village) to large enter-
prises.
Some cemeteries continue to be associ-
ated with congregations, including Adat
Shalom Memorial Park in Livonia; Clover
Hill Park, which is run by Congregation
Shaarey Zedek; Beth El Memorial Park
in Livonia, which serves the areas other
Reform and Humanistic temples; Beth
Abraham Cemetery, which is run by
Congregation Beth Ahm; and Oakview,
which is affiliated with Congregation
B'nai Moshe. The others are administered
independently. A few Jewish cemeteries,
including Oakview, are defined sections
within larger cemeteries.
Cemetery Challenge
Flowers on graves are a recent phenom-
enon, rarely seen in Jewish cemeteries in
Europe and Israel.
The idea behind "perpetual care" is that
the cemetery administrators will invest
much of the fee paid at the time of burial
in an endowment or trust fund that can be
used for grave maintenance in the future.
The fees for burials without perpetual
care cover basic maintenance, with no
flowers or other plantings.
At Detroit-area cemeteries, the cost of a
burial plot with perpetual care ranges from
$4,500 to close to $6,000. That's a bargain
compared to California, where prime
cemetery plots are selling for as much as
$25,000, Zuckman said.
All the Detroit-area cemeteries are will-
ing to accommodate families who cannot
afford the standard fee, he said.
Hebrew Memorial, in particular, is
known for helping the indigent. The orga-
nization began in 1916 as the Jewish Free
Burial Association.
The major threats facing cemeteries
are the declining Jewish population, ris-
ing maintenance costs and the increasing
Cemetery on page 12
10 October 1 • 2015