New Community Chevra Kadisha adopts gender-inclusive rituals in Jewish burial practices
'The time has come for the Jewish community, locally and broadly speaking, to pay attention to part of our community that has been hidden, and that has been hiding for various reasons'
During the past five years, the New Community Chevra Kadisha has quietly committed to updating its practices. The volunteer-led sacred society, which prepares the deceased for Jewish burial, has investigated the rituals and customs concerning postmortem gender inclusion. Conversations with national leaders, repeated discussions among local members and research into halacha (Jewish law) led NCCK to update its liturgical manuals.
The group’s three documents, which were formalized in the past 18 months, reflect several years of thought and practice surrounding taharot (posthumous ritual purifications).
Shared among NCCK members, the manuals include those for men and women, as well as a gender-expansive liturgy; each was inspired by the work of a Boston-based group.
In 2020, the Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston published “Toward A Gender-Inclusive Hevra Kadisha,” a guide including practical steps for members, overview of relevant Jewish law and liturgy, and definitions of related terms.
“The mitzvah of performing tahara and of receiving tahara must be offered to all Jews,” authors noted. Achieving that outcome necessitated the Boston group’s “ability to include trans and gender nonconforming people appropriately in our hevra and to serve them in death.”
NCCK members heard about the guide during the Kavod v’Nichum conference, an annual gathering of sacred communities focused on Jewish end-of-life rituals and practices.
About two years ago, NCCK decided to follow the Boston model. The Pittsburgh group, according to co-founder Patricia Cluss, created several committees to explore gender inclusive practices; NCCK members were surveyed; individuals from the local LGBTQ community were asked “what their experiences have been”; and a committee was tasked with engaging regional funeral homes.
“Queer Jews feel marginalized in the Jewish community, as they do in the world, and when it comes to Jewish traditional end-of-life practices, they would rather not have a tahara when they’re dead than have the people or the persons that will be caring for them be squeamish or shocked or horrified or unwelcoming,” Cluss said.
Reports of threats and communal ostracism against LGBTQ individuals have recently increased.
In February, the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law reported LGBTQ people in the U.S. are “five times more likely to experience violent victimization.”
While mapping legislative attacks, the American Civil Liberties Union pointed to 597 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., which “all cause harm for LGBTQ people.”
For many LGBTQ Jews, there’s an added level of discrimination post-Oct. 7, 2023, as hostility toward Zionism has grown at “dyke marches, college groups and pride celebrations, where queer Jews were traditionally safe, accepted and even leaders themselves,” according to the American Bar Association.
Several queer NCCK members declined to speak with the Chronicle.
Cluss, a cisgender member of the group, expressed her reluctance to speak on behalf of queer NCCK members and said, “the issue of whether LGBTQ+ Jews are seen, and how we in the cisgender Jewish community engage with them, really speaks to our Jewish values and particularly the value of respecting others.”
Furthering history
For generations, Jewish communities have resolutely buried their own.
The Babylonian Talmud records early chevra kadisha activity when describing an incident involving early fourth-century leader Rav Hamnuna: After arriving in Darumata, Rav Hamnuna heard a shofar blast signaling a local resident’s death. Despite the towering sound, townspeople continued working. Rav Hamnuna was perplexed and disappointed by the residents’ behavior. He criticized the group — only to learn that Darumata’s dead were cared for by designated entities and that the people who continued working were not members of the local sacred society.
The steadfast commitment to Jewish burial by Jews continued for centuries and across the Diaspora.
In 1564, Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi established the Prague chevra kadisha. The group’s practices — along with Jewish burial rites described in “Ma’abar Yabbot” an early 17th-century Italian kabbalistic work by Aaron Berechiah ben Moses ben Nehemiah of Modena — remain mostly followed to this day.
Every chevra kadisha, since the start, has operated with a commitment to kavod hamet (respecting the dead); that dedication should not negate a respect for the living, Cluss said.
Former Mt. Lebanon resident Rabbi Joey Glick agreed. The spiritual leader and former Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston member helped edit “Toward A Gender-Inclusive Hevra Kadisha.”
The text’s production, he explained, was spurred by new tensions in practice and understanding.
“Over the past 10 years, there’s been an ever growing portion of the Jewish community who identify as trans or gender nonbinary,” he said. “Despite a real commitment to egalitarianism, the ritual is deeply binary.”
Traditionally, men’s teams performed taharot for men and women’s teams performed taharot for women.
“For folks who identify as trans, it’s not totally clear where the ritual can fit onto their lived experience,” he said.
Glick, who currently serves as assistant rabbi of Shir Tikvah Synagogue in Minneapolis, said kavod hamet requires not just honoring the deceased “but all parts of that dead person’s identity.”
When the Boston-based group began its project, the goal was to “form rituals that would meet that ancient need in a way that is fully living up to the needs of people in our communities today.”
There was also recognition that chevra kadishas nationwide would look to the group and its document as a guide in their own quest to navigate new ritual waters.
When deciding how to proceed, questions surrounding gender inclusion may prompt one to consider abandoning all notions of gender, authors noted. Following that path would be a mistake as it “serves to alienate many cisgender people as well as many trans people, who feel that their internal sense of self is being negated, ignored or undermined.” Additionally, restricting gender altogether negates the idea of pluralism by potentially disallowing the “ability of more traditionally-practicing folks of all genders to engage in our community.”
NCCK recognized the challenges in updating its practices and followed a similar path to the Boston group.
In creating a gender expansive liturgy, the Pittsburgh-based group revisited traditional prayers and passages recited during taharot and “ungendered the Hebrew,” according to representatives of the group. “Passages drawn from Tanakh and Mishnah that refer to biblical figures were left in their original language; passages addressing the meiteh (deceased) were made gender-neutral.”
Cluss, who also serves as past-president of Kavod v’Nichum, said NCCK’s mission is to perform taharot in Pittsburgh, provide an opportunity for “all interested members” to join in the performance of taharot, and educate the wider community about the “rituals and traditions related to dying, death and funerals.”
Creating new manuals and ungendering certain Hebrew words are mechanisms to ensure more people receive taharot upon their demise, while furthering an understanding of respect, according to Glick.
“Trans and nonbinary Jews have always been in our community, and we live in this really remarkable time where those voices are making themselves heard and are shaping ritual,” he said.
“In my humble opinion, and those of many of us in the Jewish world, the time has come for the Jewish community, locally and broadly speaking, to pay attention to part of our community that has been hidden, and that has been hiding for various reasons,” Cluss said. Jewish death and Jewish life are predicated on dignity and respect, “and that’s across the board in Jewish practice.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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