Saying kaddish: Meaning-making and continuing bonds in American Jewish mourning ritual

Abstract

Jewish tradition prescribes rituals and prohibitions for the first week, month, and year after a death, which provide an organized framework for meaning-making, constructing continuing bonds, and establishing the memory of the deceased within the community. After reviewing traditional Jewish customs, this article uses ethnographic examples to explore the diverse ways in which these religious and cultural frames manifest in the lived experiences of American Jews, whose Jewish identities and practices are often fluid, contradictory, and continually evolving as they search for personally-meaningful experiences. I demonstrate how individuals, and communities, synthesize Jewish discourses of death and of mourning with the secular, medicalized discourses prevalent in American society.