LOS ANGELES, CA — It’s expensive to die in the United States, and especially in California where real estate and population booms have jacked up funeral price tags to the $10,000 mark.
A Jewish Burial, Even for Those Who Can’t Afford
LOS ANGELES, CA — It’s expensive to die in the United States, and especially in California where real estate and population booms have jacked up funeral price tags to the $10,000 mark.
To follow Jewish law that insists on consecrated land as a final resting place for all–and prohibits the cheaper cremation option-is prohibitively expensive for those who die poor or without a family to fend for them. But the same sources also make it a mitzvah, the ultimate good deed, and a communal responsibility to bury the indigent with dignity.
Chabad of California provides traditional burials without charging a fee to the impoverished and forgotten in a kempt but plain cemetery tucked between a warehouse and an industrial park, east of LA.
“Chabad has evolved into the address for those who cannot afford a Jewish burial,” Rabbi Chaim N. Cunin told Lubavitch.com from Chabad of West Coast headquarters in LA.
Mt. Olive Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery in use since 1948, was donated by the Groman family to Chabad in the early 1980s. When a need arises, Chabad partners with local Jewish mortuaries, who offer pro bono service to the destitute as part of their charter, and other organizations to prepare and transport the deceased. Chabad provides the funeral and burial services and the plot.
LA GUY
It happens to be the LA Lubavitch Cemetery as well, Rabbi Levitansky ZY"A is there as well
h.s
the raichik’s are the nicest people i know