Jewish funerals are odd affairs at the best of times. No flowers, no music and — God forbid — no viewing of the deceased.
Our cemeteries are monochrome. No ornate headstones standing tall among manicured greenery. Just a phalanx of pale slabs sombrely protruding from turned brown soil. In life, some of us Jews might like glitz but in death all Jews are socialists. There must be no distinction made between rich and poor.
And this goes for our coffins, too. No mahogany, walnut or cherry. Chipwood or balsa will do. And the more biodegradable the better . This is not a green initiative from the Chief Rabbi but our corpses have to decompose as quickly as possible. So no nails and definitely no embalming. These death traditions come from the book of Genesis which tells us: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”
But who cares about dust now? These are among the worst of times.
My wonderful Auntie P died last month. She was 82 years old with Alzheimer’s and living in a care home. She was frail and her death was not unexpected.
Nevertheless, she was a stalwart of our family, who settled in Britain in the early 20th century after escaping the Russian Empire pogroms. After my father died 16 years ago, Auntie P was like a sister to my mum, offering her friendship and support. Her two children –— my first cousins — together with Auntie P’s grandchildren and three great grandchildren are bereft and her husband of 62 years, my Uncle L is … well, I can only guess. Since lockdown, he was unable to visit the woman he loved and shared every one of his last 22,000-plus days. At the end, he was allowed by her bedside for a final socially distant farewell.
As the Covid death toll rises — and particularly in care homes — this is unfortunately an all-too-familiar story.
But then came my Auntie P’s levoyah. Only 10 people would be allowed on the grounds and nobody over 70 could attend the service in person apart from my Uncle L. My poor mum was distraught.
“But I should be there. I want to help. I want to be there for Uncle L and the kids.”
“Mum. There’s nothing you can do.”
“But I feel useless — and what about the shivah?…”
Now, there are many things we Jews get wrong but sitting shivah is one of those things I think we Jews get right. I remember sitting shivah for my dad. I’m a non-observant Jew and generally have little truck with any organised religion. But as I sat there with my mum and sister, I was visibly moved and comforted by the long line of people who shook my hand and told me a story or two about my father.
Old school friends from the East End turned up to tell me about the trouble they and “Mickey the Bully” used to get into. Yes, it turned out my dad had a nickname and it was “Mickey the Bully”. This is not the place for an explanation but just to say he wasn’t the type to turn the other cheek especially if anybody called him, or an acquaintance, a “Yid” or a “dirty Jew”… which, unfortunately, in the East End he grew up in, was all too common.
So no shivah for Auntie P. And I had to console my mum about her lack of role. But this was an easy task compared to explaining to her that Auntie P’s levoyah will be on something called Zoom which she’ll have to download on to her phone .
“No mum, not the landline — your mobile! You’ll be able to watch it on that — but you’ll have to turn your hearing aid on! Mum — is your hearing aid on now?”
“What was that about my landline?” Fortunately, I was able to subcontract this job to my sister who, after several phone calls and a lot more patience than me, managed to sort this out for her. In my book, that is a proper miracle.
At 2.55pm I took my laptop to my spare room-cum-office and clicked on the Zoom link. As I was waiting for an image to appear I felt something emotionally askew but I couldn’t place it. It was only when the video sparked into life and I saw a rabbi standing in the grounds of a very windswept Jewish cemetery in Rainham reciting Hebrew prayers that I felt an urge to act.
I ran upstairs to my sock drawer and rummaged around for a kippah. I only ever wear one when I go to synagogue which is (apologies to those more pious than me) very, very rarely. But sitting back down in front of my laptop watching events unfold a few miles east of Dagenham, I now felt more complete with a kippah covering my head.
As the rabbi continued his recital, whoever was filming the service moved back and my poor Uncle L came into view. Standing by himself, he was socially distancing from his two children who stood several metres away to either side. His 59-year-old son was still recovering from a nasty bout of Covid-19 himself so was keeping far away from everybody. Uncle L was struggling to keep his kippah on in the wind and the Rabbi’s words were badly muffled by the blowing gale .
And then suddenly they all moved off. Auntie P’s coffin was pulled to her grave by a cart and my Uncle L led the small procession with everybody following at a safe distance. As they reached the grave, you could hear the diggers’ shovels hastily finishing their work. The men themselves were out of shot.
To the side of the frame, I saw Auntie P’s devastated daughter being hugged by her two children and husband. Uncle L had to remain alone. It was too risky for him to feel an embrace of a loved one.
And, as I viewed this on my ThinkPad, I began to cry. At first, the tears came slowly, tickling my cheeks on their way down. But soon I was weeping uncontrollably as I thought about my Auntie P, my Uncle L , my cousins, my mum and my dad who was buried not far away in the same cemetery .
I’ve never cried at a funeral before and unfortunately I have been to too many of those. But here I was breaking down at a Zoom levoyah. I’m not sure whether it was the lack of witnesses to my emotional display or the overbearing sadness of what had happened but I’d been moved in a way I never expected.
When our dead are lowered into their graves, family members are asked to take a shovel and help fill the grave with earth. It’s supposed to help with closure. But in the time of corona even that can’t happen. Instead, those few in attendance, starting with Uncle L, had to touch the soil presented to him on a spade and that was then poured on to his wife’s casket.
As I pulled myself together, the wind made it hard to hear anything the rabbi was saying. I don’t even know if Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, was recited so I decided to say it in my office. . I got as far as the opening line : “ Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba” but then realised I wasn’t sure of any more of the words.
I decided to google them but then the Zoom connection went dead. Auntie P’s levoyah was over.
I have done an awful lot of handwashing recently but as I closed my laptop and took off my kippah, I felt compelled to go to the bathroom and wash my hands.
I called my mum. She was in floods of tears and kept repeating: “How awful … how awful … poor Uncle L … I should be there helping.”
I let her continue and then, as her weeping abated, my mum seemed to reappear:
“I have to say Auntie P did get a great plot — it’s near the front of the cemetery and right next to the path so nobody will have to get their shoes muddy.”
