Cremation? In Israel? January 3, 2007

Cremation is a post-life alternative chosen by an increasing number of Americans. Over 30% of Americans chose to be cremated in 2004, and according to the Cremation Association of North America, a majority of people will choose cremation over burial by the year 2040.

Cremation, however, is strongly denounced by both Judaism and Islam, which view the body as “on loan from G-d”, the property of a Divine Creator, not under an individual’s will to be disposed of as one pleases. The Talmud says flatly, “any one who orders another before his death that his remains be disposed of other than by burial should have his wishes disregarded” (Sanhedrin 46b). Islam is likewise unequivocal in its prohibition of cremation, with a hadith saying “Breaking a dead’s bones is like breaking it as if he is alive”, equating anything done to a dead body with that action done to the living person.

In fact, it’s not just Muslims and Torah-observant Jews, but Eastern Orthodox Christians, Zoroastrians, and Southern Baptists all forbid cremation. (As do Neo-Confucianists.)

How ironic it is, then, that in the one nation called the “Holy Land”, cremation is cheaper than it is in America.

The Jerusalem Post tells us today:

In a case that pitted traditional Jewish sensibilities against the right of the deceased to dispose of his body the way he sees fit, the Jerusalem District Court permitted this week the cremation of Shmuel Rosen, 80, a Holocaust survivor, despite the opposition of a distant relative on moral and religious grounds.

Rosen was cremated on Sunday and his ashes were transferred to his family on Tuesday.

Judge Moshe Sobol rejected the demand by a haredi woman named Miriam Freed, whose grandmother was Rosen’s mother’s sister, to stop the cremation. Sobol based his decision on a terse statement from Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz’s office that effectively recognized the lack of legislation governing cremation in Israel.

Israel wants to be secular so bad it can smell it. Note, this was not a protracted legal battle. The Attorney General recognized that there was “no prohibition.” Following on this lead, the judge said, “I can’t stop you.” Religious parties in the Knesset which had tried to outlaw cremation on religious grounds had their cause left unaddressed:

Publication of Mazuz’s opinion on the need for legislation might set in motion pressure from Shas, United Torah Judaism and National Religious Party-National Union MKs to anchor in law prohibition of the practice that is anathema to traditional Jewish sensibilities and outlawed by Halacha.

In July 2005, Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) presented to the Knesset a bill that would obligate every Israeli Jew to be buried, and prohibit any other practice that caused damage to the body. But so far the bill has not been discussed.

In the meantime, Alon Nativ, CEO of Aley Shalechet, a funeral home that runs Israel’s only crematorium, has cremated dozens of customers for about NIS 10,000, as he has been doing for the last year-and-a-half.

“Haredim have no right coercing a man who has lived his entire life as an atheist to be buried instead of cremated,” said Nativ. “Cremation is just as legitimate an option as burial. Besides, it should be a personal decision.”

You know what, go ahead and say that. He did not want to live as a Jew, so “haredim” have no right to require him to be buried like one. But this is symptomatic of the general zeitgeist that permeates so much of the Israeli chiloni populace: anything which even resonates with traditional Jewish practice must be bulldozed like so many terrorist residences.

Yet another slap in the face to the two religious groups which give Israel the backbone and character so many try so hard to deny.