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Why are the burial plots in (many) Jewish cemeteries segregated by gender?
I think that it is only a more recent thing. I was told that there is no real reason to this.
The oldest beis hakevorim in Europe are seperated like this, too.
Because tznius has gone overboard.
I heard that it might lead to mixed dancing by tichiyas hameisim.
It is a minhag thing. Some do it and some don’t. It probably depended on which town in Europe the person who was in charge of the section was from.
Live & let live (in D’var Reshus).
avhaben – aside from the fact that in botei kvaros across Europe Rabonnim are buried with wives and daughters above below or beside them, If you have any knowledge of burial practices in eretz yisroel before and after the churban bayis sheini, you would know that families buried their meisim in ossuaries for a few years, then reinterred the bones. These were buried in family tombs, of which there are dozens around yerushalayim, especially in the areas of sanhedriya and talpiyot. families were buried together.
At some point in the last 200 years a determination was made in some communities that it was appropriate to bury men and women separately if the space was available, but there is an abundance of physical evidence all over Europe that there is no halachic necessity to do so.
Feif Un
“Because tznius has gone overboard.”
Dont you mean underground?
In all seriousness though Tznius is at an all time low. I think the way women in our community dress today is overboard and I think it is extremely cruel that they 1) Cause such nisyonos to the men
2) Cause nisyonos to frum girls and women who would otherwise dress Tzniusdig but because “everyone” else is dressing like EDITED they feel that they must also.
mythoughts- very funny !
On a more serious note, this must be a very new “minhag’ because the vast majority of Botei chayim in the world do not discriminate.
The Satmar Rebbe Rav Yoel zt”l is buried right next to his wife!
It must be a new chumra because our Avos are buried next to their wives.
Cherry: It is not a new minhag at all. You can see some very old cemetaries with the men and women buried in alternating rows, so that they are one in front of another instead of side by side.
One that I am aware of is the southern street cemetery in Baltimore, which is well over 100 years old.
As far as the avos, I don’t know what information you have that they are buried side by side instead of one in front of the other.
Different minhagim. Not our business to get all excited or judgmental; this time of year we leave the judging to SomeOne Else.
(But I did like mythoughts’ heara)
gavra_at_work: don’t you mean live and let die? (That seems so familiar for some reason….)
I heard from old-timers that before the war many women kept Shabbos and were entitled to be buried in Shomer Shabbos sections while, sadly, most of their husbands and sons did not stand up to the incredibly difficult Nisayon of Shmiras Shabbos in those years and they were refused burial in Shomer Shabbos sections.
By the time the 1930s came around, cemeteries evolved into men’s and women’s sections originally being non-Shomer-Shabbos and Shomer-Shabbos sections.
People in our time just continued these policies of the old cemetaries. Many thinking that it is some sort of Tznius or Frumkeit when it is just a relic of a very sad chapter in Jewish American history.
gavra_at_work: don’t you mean live and let die? (That seems so familiar for some reason….)
Dr., No.
Another burial policy question is whether the women covered her hair; not did she speak loshon harah or did she give tzedakah,etc.
cherrybim- this, again ,is a minhag and i think that Satmsr and some other Hungarian groups are makpid on that. the rest of the world is not.
I heard from old-timers that before the war many women kept Shabbos and were entitled to be buried in Shomer Shabbos sections while, sadly, most of their husbands and sons did not stand up to the incredibly difficult Nisayon of Shmiras Shabbos in those years and they were refused burial in Shomer Shabbos sections.
By the time the 1930s came around, cemeteries evolved into men’s and women’s sections originally being non-Shomer-Shabbos and Shomer-Shabbos sections.
People in our time just continued these policies of the old cemetaries. Many thinking that it is some sort of Tznius or Frumkeit when it is just a relic of a very sad chapter in Jewish American history.
This is easily disproven by the existence of much older cemeteries which have separate rows for men and women, and by the fact it is not separate sections, but separate rows. That is:
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Cherrybim, before you start to wonder why they would ask about hair covering before, for example lashon hara, tzedaka etc- it’s quite obvious why it’s often used to guage level of observance.
We can’t peer into people’s hearts and determine their level of emunah & bitachon. We can’t overhear their prayers and determine their level of kavana. And if we don’t know the woman personally we may not be able to figure out how pure her speech was or how much chessed she did without nosey yentish inquiries that would inevitably lead to lashon hara and rechilus being spoken. We certainly cannot ask about taharas hamishpacha, and even shemiras Shabbos can be shakey inside the daled amos of a person’s home without strangers being any wiser. Hair covering is there for all to see easily.
At least that’s how it was in the olden days. Some 21st century human hair sheitels may leave you wondering. But that’s a different topic for a different thread.
Well, there is no doubt that her hair is covered in the grave.
“Cherrybim, before you start to wonder why they would ask about hair covering before, for example lashon hara, tzedaka etc- it’s quite obvious why it’s often used to guage level of observance……Hair covering is there for all to see easily.”
It’s quite obvious how well she observed that mitzva. It is no indication whatsoever of how observant she was of other mitzvos. Some of the absolute biggest baalos chessed I know do not cover their hair yet they are extremely dedicated to their avodas Hashem in every way.
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