Reducing funeral costs

[Deleted User]

margaretclare wrote: »

I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but I think the delays people experience now are just too much - 3 weeks because the 'crem' is too busy.

When I was a child funerals usually happened within the week, a few days. People knew they'd be buried in the churchyard. My mum was the first person I ever heard of who wanted to be cremated, but she didn't say what to do with her ashes. I decided they should be interred in the family plot in the village churchyard, so there are 3 generations of them all together.

For DH and me, it's going to be a 'green burial' and it can't be delayed because no embalming allowed.

Last autumn DH went to a funeral of a cousin of his - one of those who wouldn't speak to him because he'd 'married out'. He wouldn't want to be buried there. It's
Rainham Jewish cemetery and he said, it's London clay.

A good old fashioned broigus (Yiddish word for a dispute, usually family related). It's pretty old fashioned to get upset at people who marry outside The Tribe, but there's always a racist old uncle or aunt hiding away ready to unleash their opinion.

It's traditional when attending a Jewish funeral to wear a little bit of red ribbon hidden on your person. This is to see away the 'evil eye'and lashon hara (evil tongues). Usually from bitter, horrible old people!

margaretclare

Thanks for this. Yes, it may be old-fashioned but then, it goes back to when DH married his first (ex) wife back in the 60s. The cousin whose funeral he attended in the autumn was our generation and she definitely refused to speak to him up to recent times. Although someone who spoke to him at her funeral said 'oh, she remembered you, she spoke about playing together as kids'. This would have been 1944 when her family took refuge with his family outside London to avoid the doodlebugs. Well, although she remembered him and spoke about him to others, she wouldn't speak to him. We tried!

Another of his cousins, on his mother's side this time, acted as his best man at our wedding in 2002. No prejudice there! Nice man, sadly died 3 years ago after a long battle with acute myeloid leukaemia. DH went to his funeral too, and a year later we visited his grave. It's the same cemetery where Amy Winehouse is buried. We took flowers and we said the Lord's Prayer. DH is probably the only person surviving who remembered him as a young guy - they went swimming together and did all those laddish things together. My opinion is that when people get up and talk about him as a 'husband, dad, grandad' etc, if there's anyone who can talk about what he was like in younger years, that shouldn't be forgotten. Because we were all something before marriage, kids, grandkids etc. It's easy to talk about ex-forces etc if that applies, but there are other things. Fun times, just to lighten the atmosphere.

My BIL told me that his bro had been married 3 times and he hadn't been to any of the weddings. 'And I couldn't have gone to yours because it was in a church!' He's what he calls a 'secular ethnic Jew' and what that means, he hasn't explained.

I don't think DH remembered about the red ribbon - he never said, I could have dug out some if he'd wanted it.

margaretclare

Yes, it is racism, and I've been called a 'shiksa'. Different when the boot is on the other foot, isn't it!

[Deleted User]

I'm glad I've not hit the age where I've been to all too many funerals. Mostly grandparents of people.

Technically, Jews aren't meant to pray in (or even go into) Christian Churches. Oddly enough, Mosques are ok though. I've been to a few Church weddings. I didn't melt or anything!

I'm probably a secular ethnic Jew. Keep a lot of the traditions, but not outwardly 'Jewish' in many respects. I don't go to synagogue or keep kosher - but we will celebrate the holidays with family. It's quite easy to be a secular Jew really.

'Marrying in' *is* technically racism. It's tricky because the entire Jewish people rely on it too to stay as a coherent group. I remember the problems my BIL had when he started dating his non-Jewish girlfriend - especially around Christmas time. She converted in the end and is more religious then I am..

margaretclare

ringo_24601 wrote: »

I'm glad I've not hit the age where I've been to all too many funerals. Mostly grandparents of people.

Technically, Jews aren't meant to pray in (or even go into) Christian Churches. Oddly enough, Mosques are ok though. I've been to a few Church weddings. I didn't melt or anything!

I'm probably a secular ethnic Jew. Keep a lot of the traditions, but not outwardly 'Jewish' in many respects. I don't go to synagogue or keep kosher - but we will celebrate the holidays with family. It's quite easy to be a secular Jew really.

'Marrying in' *is* technically racism. It's tricky because the entire Jewish people rely on it too to stay as a coherent group. I remember the problems my BIL had when he started dating his non-Jewish girlfriend - especially around Christmas time. She converted in the end and is more religious then I am..

Thank you very much for the explanation. I've often been curious and wanted to ask questions, but DH is simply not interested - he left it all behind a long time ago. I don't think he ever really accepted it and is now a practising Christian. He didn't do that to please me though. Receiving Communion really means a lot to him and he gets very emotional. While he's been so incapacitated with the leg surgery we've had Communion brought to us at home. He sheds a tear or two!

We're hoping to go to France to visit BIL later in the year and I'll ask him about mosques. The church where we were married was nonconformist and very simple - no stained glass, chairs not pews, nothing there to upset anybody. The one we go to now is 1000 years old. The medieval stained glass was destroyed by zealots at the time of the reformation, 16th/17th century, and has been replaced by Victorian stained glass in memory of people who'd been church members.

[Deleted User]

The reason you can't pray in a Church (if you are Jewish) is because of the theological concept of the Trinity. Judaism doesn't like it. Islam treats god as one entity, so Mosques are fine.

Glad your DH has found a community to be part of that makes him happy and brings him comfort.

margaretclare

ringo_24601 wrote: »

The reason you can't pray in a Church (if you are Jewish) is because of the theological concept of the Trinity. Judaism doesn't like it. Islam treats god as one entity, so Mosques are fine.

Thank you for the explanation. I've also been told by Muslims that they don't like the pictures - the stained-glass windows - because they think they're idols that we worship. Of course we don't!!!

Glad your DH has found a community to be part of that makes him happy and brings him comfort.

Odd that you should use the word 'community'. That's exactly how he feels. After he'd been unable to attend church for so long - surgery first in our local hospital, incarcerated there for 4 weeks, then Oxford and unable to walk - when he finally made it to church he was immediately surrounded by his own fan club and had kisses and handshakes. Everyone had been thinking of him and praying for him and he stood up and thanked everybody. Afterwards he said to me that it was the first time in his life that he'd felt part of a community, apart from sports clubs and teams. I said 'What about the community you were brought up in?' He didn't seem to think much of that at all. He said he was told to do things but never explained why.