Who Takes Care of the Loved Ones?

Abstract

Personal Experience as an Introduction My mother died at the end of the nineties. Since had been out of town, arrived at the hospital only the next morning was asked by the man in charge of the morgue, Russian by his accent, whether wanted to see her. Viewing the corpse is objectionable according to Jewish religion (Lamm 2000:29ff.); thus hesitated for a moment before accepting his offer. asked to be left alone with her. he opened the drawer left. And there saw my sweet mother lying peacefully intact. Good bye, dear mother, told her without words. Then, leaving the room thanked the man for his kindness. Shortly afterwards was on the phone talking to the members of The (Hevra Kadisha) in order to arrange the funeral. I just need your services, told them rather impatiently, and with as few prayers as possible. They were very polite agreed to my requests. A young emphatic rabbi dressed with a colorful, open vest, unlike the usual black attire of the members of the Holy Association, conducted a short service. Contrary to my expectations, the ceremony was performed not in ancient incomprehensible language but in fluent eloquent Hebrew. As is customary, he asked the deceased to forgive whatever harm the members of the Association had unintentionally caused her. After she was put in the grave talked to her parted from her once more. Shortly afterward the young rabbi left us. We stayed for a while near the new grave, listening silently to a Sibelius concerto, much loved by my mother. Finally we laid garlands of flowers left the cemetery. Since tradition does not encourage frequent grave visitations (Lamm 2000:193ff.), no other ceremony, besides my private, made-up ceremony, in line with my mother's aesthetic values, was ever conducted, the tombstone was laid in our absence. In the fifties, at the age of ninety-two my grandmother passed away. Following the religious ceremony that took place in the old cemetery the entire family gathered at her small house for the Shiva (the seven days of mourning). During this period the close relatives kept on their torn garments from the funeral, sitting on low inconvenient stools in the living room. As is customary, her sons were unshaven during the Shiva wore soft ballet shoes to symbolize their personal mortification (Lamm 2000:116). Friends relatives came to join the bereaved in their daily prayer, providing companionship loving concern. remember this period, so different from my mother's lonely unattended Shiva, as a happy time when the family was still united. It is not easy to pry into death experience. However, when related to ethnographic studies, it may provide clues to the change from traditional Jewish to secular burial practices that have taken place in the last fifty years in Israel (see also Lamm 2000; Goldberg 1982:124; Meyerhoff 1982:129; Abramovitch 1986; Cytron 1993:113-123). Anthropology has mainly concentrated on the rituals surrounding death their relations to unchanging social worlds (Bloch Perry 1982:36; Taylor 1989:149). Recently, however, a new approach, which focuses on complementary theoretical perspectives, has been taken up (Dubisch 1989:189). This focus includes, first, the emotional experience of death (Taylor 1989:149; Cowell 1986:69-70; Durham 2002:147), which takes into account the diverse human reactions to the deep power resonance of the experience of death. Contrary to the unchangeable social worlds conceived in long-standing attitudes toward death, this new approach concerns the conflict over meaning moral authority related to death. This new perspective therefore adds a dynamic view to the anthropological study of death. second, the new approach includes the material dimension of death, which has formerly been an essential category of evidence for archaeology. This perspective refers to the physical remains as well as to physical space of death, mainly the cemeteries the material objects related to death. …