Peacefulreturn.org provides educational articles, videos, stories, brochures and burial forms to promote Jewish burial instead of cremation.
For most big scenarios, if you fail to plan you can be pretty sure you can plan to fail. While this statement gets people’s attention in school, it is no laughing matter for Jewish educators. Here’s why: more than a third of Jews are choosing to cremate themselves and their loved ones.
And it happens in the Orthodox community too. There have been countless situations of men and women who start to connect to their Jewish heritage but when they pass away they have left no written explanation that they want a Jewish burial. Unfortunately most of the time they have a non-religious mother, father, spouse or child who is not connected to Judaism and may even have a hostile feeling towards Orthodox Judaism.
The relatives have the legal power to decide what to do with their loved one’s body and often choose to have the deceased person cremated to the anguish of the Jewish educators and the religious community who have begun to help the individual build a new life.
This is not a made up scenario.
It happens almost every day.
While more than a third of Jews nationwide are choosing cremation, in some states in the US, Jewish cremation is fifty percent and even seventy percent. The reasons vary from person to person – but it all comes down to two things – a lack of Jewish education on why burial matters. And the lack of pre-planning.
Men and women who work in Jewish education are the perfect people to guide newly religious people to properly plan for these end-of-life scenarios. Jewish educators are often the closest ones to newly religious individuals but have no legal power when it comes to this issue. It is therefore imperative that Jewish educators take the opportunity to educate themselves on this important end-of- life topic and take the opportunity to initiate a dialogue with their community on Jewish end-of-life practices. This is the only way to slow the cremation crisis.
All it takes is planning. All it takes is filling out a simple one page burial form that can be found at www.peacefulreturn.org. Peacefulreturn.org is dedicated to providing Jews with information on why burial is better. There are videos, articles, true stories and brochures on why burial is the better choice. A straightforward yet sensitive class and promotional flyer have been created using a PowerPoint presentation with video materials to help Jewish educators present this material in their community on Jewish end-of-life matters. Peaceful Return can customize documents and class materials for local organizations and has funds available for promotion and refreshments to help organizations put on events and deliver this important program in their communities.
For more information, please contact, Robin Davina Meyerson at rdm@peacefulreturn.org or call 602-469-1606.
