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Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,075,134 times
Reputation: 15537
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pumpkin mouse
I'm just talking about a regular cemetery, where you're leaving and you notice a stone with a Magen David, and you still have a couple of stones left in your pouch . I meant a cemetery that might have maybe, one other Jewish grave stone in the whole section that you passed.
I'm used to cemeteries where everyone is Jewish or at least the section that I am visiting is all Jewish. I do know that LA has cemeteries which are a mix and both Jew and none-Jew are side by side which is not a bad thing..
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,075,134 times
Reputation: 15537
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel NewYork
Actually, Gentiles did visit cemeteries in the last century or so, as family outings. If you ever go on a tour at the famous Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (which is a designated National Historic Landmark), the tour guide will tell you how families from the city would pack picnic baskets and bring the food to the cemetery when visiting graves. Because the cemetery is laid out like an expansive park, visiting graves with the family and having lunch there was a respite for the city dwellers. This would be considered inappropriate in a Jewish cemetery (as well as impossible anyway, as the Jewish cemeteries in the city were/are crowded with graves).
I highly recommend taking a tour of Woodlawn. The history is amazing, and the mausoleums are breathtaking. During certain tours, they'll even take you inside the mausoleums.
In Richmond we have Hollywood Cemetery which like Woodlawn or Greenwood in Brooklyn is a Victorian Garden Cemetery which came into vogue during the latter half of the 19th century. It would have been very ingrained in Southern Culture to have a Sunday visit to loved ones who have passed and tend to the graves. This would have been the gentiles the Jewish Cemetery is more utilitarian.
Very interesting! I once had an Irish Catholic friend who told me that pregnant women could not go to wakes (the custom of gathering in a room with the deceased's body) because the spirit of the dead person might jump into the unborn child.
It grew from how close the person was to the person who died and the stress related to it. Judaism sort of has something similar where there is little to no service and the visit at the cemetery it rather short. I think it falls under ayin hara (evil eye). Non-religious Jews seem to follow it more time wise as both are very short compared to religious Jews (as seen by all the Hasidic video's online) who do it much longer (mostly male thou).
Sorry, I was responding to Jess's comment on the last page about the Victorians having some weird customs,
I quoted her, but my comment came up separately, so it looks like I'm off topic
Yes, people did visit cemeteries and picnic in them. My mom used to take us to look at old cemeteries whenever we went on vacation. I still love them.
I want to visit Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. They give tours. I worked near it in Boro Park for a year but never got the chance to go.
There is a difference between visiting cemeteries for cultural or recreational or personal mourning purposes and going for religious reasons. I was just correcting Coney on his misperception that part of Christianity includes encouragement to visit graves.
Now there ARE cases where people incorporate grave-visiting into their religion. Vincent Van Gogh's parents lost a toddler, also named Vincent, before the one who became the artist was born (Dutch people would give the next child the same name if a child died.) His father was a Dutch Reformed Church minister, and every Sunday after church the family would walk out to the churchyard and pray at the grave. So Vincent No 2 grew up seeing his name on a headstone. Maybe that contributed to his mental illness.
Well for visiting old(er) Jewish cemeteries one should have some sort of reference guide or person as there certain ways inscriptions are done.
First of all, I don't think it is possible to see Phantom of the Opera too much.
You are right about interesting traditions. My daughter lived in China and studies/teaches Mandarin and knows something of the culture. They have an annual "grave-sweeping day" when you tend the graves of your ancestors, cleaning them and planting things. She could not attend my mother's funeral because of the restrictions, but she was going to try and make the trip the following week on the day of the Chibese observance and do that instead. Unfortunately, because things got tighter, she couldn't do that, either. It was an interesting idea, though.
https://youtu.be/QNfdAkVNCNY
Has your daughter seen the movie " Iron and silk"? It's a very good movie.
It's about a guy who goes to China, after the Cultural Revolution, to teach English. In return, he learns a lot about China and their culture. The students find out that he likes Kung Fu movies, so one of them shows him a Kung Fu class in the area. He wants to take lessons and keeps begging the master teacher to take him on as a student.
That part is funny. Finally, the teacher excepts him. The ending is sad though.
https://youtu.be/QNfdAkVNCNY
Has your daughter seen the movie " Iron and silk"? It's a very good movie.
It's about a guy who goes to China, after the Cultural Revolution, to teach English. In return, he learns a lot about China and their culture. The students find out that he likes Kung Fu movies, so one of them shows him a Kung Fu class in the area. He wants to take lessons and keeps begging the master teacher to take him on as a student.
That part is funny. Finally, the teacher excepts him. The ending is sad though.
Actually, Gentiles did visit cemeteries in the last century or so, as family outings. If you ever go on a tour at the famous Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (which is a designated National Historic Landmark), the tour guide will tell you how families from the city would pack picnic baskets and bring the food to the cemetery when visiting graves. Because the cemetery is laid out like an expansive park, visiting graves with the family and having lunch there was a respite for the city dwellers. This would be considered inappropriate in a Jewish cemetery (as well as impossible anyway, as the Jewish cemeteries in the city were/are crowded with graves).
I highly recommend taking a tour of Woodlawn. The history is amazing, and the mausoleums are breathtaking. During certain tours, they'll even take you inside the mausoleums.
I remember doing that once when I was 5 or 6...They brought a grill and set up tables and chairs at the grave of the loved one...That was in the Easton Cemetery in Easton, pa Rte 22 ran right past it...
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