OUR COMMUNITY

34 | MAY 26 • 2022 

I

t looked like any other funer-
al procession, except there 
was no hearse and no corpse. 
Volunteers in a small convoy of 
cars from Congregation Beth 
Shalom in Oak Park to Hebrew 
Memorial Park in Clinton 
Township were carrying old 
prayerbooks and other printed 
materials containing the name of 
God. According to Jewish tradi-
tion, these need to be stored or 
buried, not trashed or burned. 
Such items, which can include 
everything from old, irrepara-
ble Torah scrolls and worn-out 
prayer shawls to primers intro-
ducing children to prayer, are 
known collectively as shaimos, or 
“names.
” The practice of burying 
them stems from Deuteronomy 

Chapter 2, where the Israelites 
are ordered to blot out and 
destroy the names of the gods of 
the nations they conquer, but not 
to treat God in the same way.
“Sacred texts should not be 
discarded in the garbage,
” said 
Beth Shalom’s spiritual leader, 
Rabbi Robert Gamer. 
For thousands of years, Jews 
have been storing or burying 
such materials in spaces that 
became known as genizas, from 
the Hebrew verb l’g’noze, to stash 
or store away.
The renowned Cairo geniza, 
discovered in 1896, was a shaft in 
an ancient synagogue wall where 
all kinds of materials written in 
Hebrew were stored. Because of 
the dry environment, the items, 

dating back to the 1100s, did not 
decompose; they proved to be a 
historical treasure trove.
Beth Shalom had 103 cartons 
of old printed materials, includ-
ing full sets of prayerbooks last 
used in the 1980s, benschers 
used for the grace after meals, 
old library books and texts from 
the religious school. Much of 
the material had been in the 
synagogue’s basement and had 
been damaged in the 2014 flood, 
but there was also a complete 
Talmud in good condition. 
Other materials came from con-
gregants and others who lived in 
the neighborhood and had heard 
about the geniza project.
“We looked at more than 
3,000 books to decide what we 
could recycle and what had to be 
buried,
” Gamer said. “We tried to 
give things away, but not much 
was taken.
” One reason is that 
many Hebrew texts, including 
the Talmud, are now available 
free online. People don’t need 
the physical books as much any-

more, he said.
Some congregations bury 
shaimos in a plot on their own 
grounds. In Detroit, most such 
materials are interred at Hebrew 
Memorial Park in Clinton 
Township, under the auspices of 
the Hebrew Benevolent Society. 
Beth Shalom’s executive director, 
Shira Shapiro, worked with cem-
etery officials; once they knew 
the number of cartons and their 
dimensions; cemetery workers 
were able to prepare a long, 
narrow plot just large enough to 
handle the materials.
A dozen synagogue members 
joined Gamer and Cantor Sam 
Greenbaum in a brief ceremony 
in the synagogue’s lobby before 
loading the cartons into cars and 
unloading the cartons into the 
prepared plot.
Burying books is ecologically 
responsible, Gamer said. The 
books will return to the earth 
to enrich the soil, which will be 
used to grow trees, which will be 
used to make more books. 

A Proper Burial 
for Holy Books

Beth Shalom buries old books 
containing the name of God.

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ABOVE: Aryeh Gamer, 15, of Huntington Woods lowers a carton of 
books into the prepared grave with help from a cemetary staffer.
LEFT: The Beth Shalom book burial team included (from left) Rabbi 
Robert Gamer, Yefim Milter, Aryeh Gamer, Cantor Sam Greenbaum, 
Marie Slotnick, Sarah Reisig, Aaron Pickover and Glen Pickover.

