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burial

A view from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, with the Old City and Temple Mount in the background, November 17, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)
February 12, 2026, 6:01 am
Israel’s generous burial policy will become unsustainable as population ages, study warns
With annual death toll expected to double by mid-2040s, report from Taub Center calls for rethinking approach to burials, including adopting higher-density practices to prevent ‘cities of the dead’
By Zev Stub
Amy Koplow, executive director of the Hebrew Free Burial Association, and Efrem Reis, assistant director, look through a list of donor names at the association’s Maiden Lane headquarters in New York City, June 2025. (Cathryn J. Prince)
October 31, 2025, 1:29 pm
The haunting history of the Jewish burial society that cares for NYC’s lost and forgotten
Since 1888, the Hebrew Free Burial Association has ensured that in the city that never sleeps, the poor and huddled masses enter their eternal rest with compassion and dignity
By Cathryn J. Prince
Alina Plahti, who was killed at the Supernova music festival on October 7, 2023, was buried separately from other Jews at a cemetery in her home city of Beit She’an. (Courtesy)
July 10, 2025, 9:58 pm
Knesset rejects bill to let all terror victims be buried in Jewish cemeteries
Civil society groups say vote shows Israel has failed to learn lessons from October 7, when some victims who were not considered Jewish by law were buried in separate cemeteries
By Rossella Tercatin
The Mackinac Bridge, as seen from the north in St. Ignace, Michigan. (Insert) Lawrence Rubin's funeral in Petoskey, Michigan, held May 28, 2025, 15 years after his death. (Andrew Lapin/JTA)
June 16, 2025, 2:05 am
15 years after his death, a Jewish bridge builder is buried in Michigan
Lawrence Rubin, who led construction of America’s 3rd-longest suspension bridge and had a well-attended 2010 funeral, was only recently found in a small-town funeral home
By Andrew Lapin
US soldiers carry the coffin of 1st. Lt. Nathan B. Baskind, who was buried in a German mass grave after being killed in WWII and recently reburied after DNA testing proved his identity, in Normandy, France, June 23, 2024. (Benjamin Mack-Jackson)
June 30, 2024, 4:59 pm
After 80 years in a Nazi grave, Jewish American WWII hero reburied under Star of David
1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind was killed in Normandy after D-Day. His body was never returned, but thanks to dedication and new technology, his is one of the site’s few Jewish funerals
By Benjamin Mack-Jackson
Illustrative - A Palestinian woman prays by a relative's tomb as others bury their dead following overnight Israeli airstrikes, at a cemetery in east Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, February 26, 2024. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP)
April 9, 2024, 3:13 pm
Unable to travel to northern Gaza, Christians bury their dead in Muslim cemeteries
Worker at Muslim cemetery in Rafah area says he’s doing what’s necessary to ‘protect God’s creations on this earth’ amid ongoing war, mass displacement
By Reuters and ToI Staff
A fence in the area of the Beit She'an New Cemetery where non-Jews and people who died by suicide are buried. (Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Lesri)
November 16, 2023, 6:05 pm
After Oct. 7 victim buried outside cemetery, fence separating non-Jews lowered
Move follows outcry by media and lawmakers over the Beit She’an burial of an immigrant from Russia whose father is Jewish but whose mother isn’t
By Canaan Lidor
Alina Plahti (Courtesy)
November 14, 2023, 11:00 am
MKs blast separate burial for Hamas massacre victim who was converting to Judaism
Rabbinate kept 23-year-old Alina Plahti, murdered at Nova festival, out of Jewish part of cemetery; her mother says move is hurtful: ‘She was killed for her Judaism’
By Canaan Lidor
Alina Plahti, who was killed at the Supernova music festival on October 7, 2023, was buried separately from other Jews at a cemetery in her home city of Beit She’an. (Courtesy)
November 14, 2023, 2:25 am
The Jewishness of some Hamas victims sparks bitter disputes over their burial
At the rabbinate’s insistence, two non-Jewish Israelis have been buried ‘outside the fence’ despite their families’ wishes, while others fight to cremate their loved ones
By Canaan Lidor
The bodies of Israelis killed in a Hamas-led slaughter are gathered for identification at a military base in Ramle, Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zweigenberg)
October 16, 2023, 1:10 am
Rabbis work 24/7 — even on Shabbat — to identify and tally those killed by Hamas
At IDF Rabbinate facility in Ramle, volunteers, reservists and experts say it could take months to provide certainty for families of all those killed in Oct. 7 terror onslaught
By AP and ToI Staff
A fetus inside the womb (iStock via Getty Images)
May 24, 2023, 6:24 pm
Hospital finds five stillborn fetuses were never returned to families for burial
Eilat’s Yoseftal Medical Center says it was only recently made aware that remains sent to lab for autopsies in separate incidents five-to-eight years ago weren’t returned
By Michael Horovitz
Illustrative: The Nahariya cemetery in 2019 (iStock)
January 25, 2023, 9:58 pm
Burial worker circumcises body in northern Israel without family’s consent
Colleague claims manager told religious volunteer to perform ritual ‘without thinking twice’; head of burial society denies incident occurred
By Avner Hofstein
A general view of the Israeli parliament building, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, July 2015. (Nati Shohat/FLASH90)
September 8, 2022, 2:09 pm
Daily Briefing Sept. 8: Incredible shrinking women in the Knesset; religious reforms
Political correspondent Carrie Keller-Lynn on National Unity disunity; religion reporter Judah Ari Gross on incentives to bury stillbirths and pressure on recalcitrant husbands
By ToI Staff
View of a new underground cemetery at Givat Shaul Cemetery in Jerusalem, on October 30, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
September 7, 2022, 4:04 pm
Israel incentivizes proper burials for stillborns to ‘ease suffering of families’
Advocacy group says new changes to payment policy remove final obstacles keeping burial societies from performing funerals for fetuses
By Judah Ari Gross
Dr. Jonathan Weinkle of Pittsburgh's New Community Chevra Kadisha pours water as part of an October 3 ritual completion of tahara ruchanit, or spiritual cleansing. (Adam Reinherz/ Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA)
October 16, 2021, 3:59 am
After tweaking rituals during pandemic, a US Jewish burial society makes amends
A chevra kadisha in Pittsburgh returns to the graves of over 100 people who died in 2020-21 to pray and ‘apologize’ for being unable to perform preparation for burial in entirety
By Adam Reinherz
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