Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York by Allan Amanik

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York by Allan Amanik Sue Fawn Chung Allan Amanik. Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York. New York: New York University Press, 2019. Pp. 276. Cloth $40. ISBN: 9781479800803 In the Goldstein-Goran Series in American Jewish History. Death is inevitable and a proper burial is very important to the majority of people in the world. It is not surprising that from the mid-seventeenth century until the present, Jews were concerned about death and burials. Separation in death, which was common among most American immigrants, was vital, so that even when a general cemetery was used, the Jewish section was separated into its own space. Using a tremendous amount of Jewish archival materials, some very difficult to access, including records from different synagogues, temples, fraternal societies, other welfare groups, and private funeral companies, as well as newspapers and a rich variety of other materials, Allan Amanik has written an excellent book on the history and evolution of Jewish concerns about death and burial practices in New York from the mid-seventeenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century. In a chronological presentation, “this book charts the ways in which funerary provisions served as an engine of changing communal life, as family, financial security, and consumerism grew in importance in shaping Jewish approaches to death and burial over time” (8). The history and religious concerns that the Jewish leaders faced resonate not only with the development of Jewish cemeteries in the United States but also with other minority groups that experienced similar struggles in a changing American society. Chapter one focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when small boards of synagogue elites dominated and dictated burial practices in [End Page 247] an atmosphere of clients wanting to move away from communal, chronological (buried by date of death) burials to family plots with an emphasis on kinship ties. Problems, such as how to deal with interfaith marriages, widows, and orphans, what to do about increasing expenses and endowments, limited cemetery space, and the arrival of European-ordained rabbis with different practices, added to the controversies. Chapter two discusses the solution by Jewish burial societies to allow family burials and add welfare services for surviving dependents, thus breaking the synagogue’s monopoly over charity and communal organizations in the nineteenth century. Reform Judaism (originating in nineteenth-century Germany), as seen in the activities of Dr. Max Lilienthal (1815–1882) and temples like Emanu-El, led to greater changes that promoted egalitarianism and eschewed Orthodox strict ritualistic practices, dietary laws, separation of men and women, funerary paraphernalia, and inclusion of hereditary caste or gender preferences. The Reform directors added to their concern women, widows, and orphans, the poor, those who converted to Judaism, and those whose spouses were not Jewish. Due to eminent domain and prohibition of cemeteries in the cities like New York, exhumations that were prohibited in Jewish law had to take place, and new cemeteries along with new synagogues were established in rural areas (Rural Cemetery Movement) as the suburbs grew with the growing industrialization and the growth of the middle class. Chapters three focuses on women and working men. By giving voice to the problems of Jewish women, widows, and non-Jewish spouses, Amanik has shed new light on a topic that is usually touched upon lightly, if at all, in other cemetery studies. The plight of women was especially interesting. Chapter four to the epilogue covers funeral practices from 1890 to the present as private, professional funeral establishments took over the industry at the turn of the century and often had all-inclusive burial packages and state of the art “garden” cemeteries. The price in 1913 for a package that included modern chapels, ritual washing, embalming, shrouds, funeral processions and transportation, and the grave site was a mere $35. Fraudulent practices and other problems persuaded the synagogue elders to fight back and regain their oversight of death rituals. In 1963 and 1965 the United Synagogue codified funeral standards and the bonds of kinship in death was a part of it. A revival of the...