DEATH AND MOURNING
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die.
-Ecclesiastes, chapter 3
We are here to provide support, comfort, and guidance in the event of a death in your family. Our clergy team can help guide you through the process of making funeral arrangements.
The clergy team is also available to schedule unveilings (when a gravestone is dedicated), and discuss observance of yahrzeit (the yearly anniversary of a death).
In the event of a death, please call the clergy assistant, Isabel Benebgui-Montilla at 718-522-2070 x138 to connect and share this information with the clergy team.
After business hours and on weekends, the Synagogue’s phone menu will direct you to an emergency phone number to contact the clergy member on call.
YAHRZEIT
At BHS, we read the names for Yahrzeits of the loved ones of our members on the Friday evening following the actual Yahrzeit date.
If you are visiting with us during the week of a yahrzeit that is important to you, please send us an email with your name and the name of your loved one, and the date you will be here.
If you would be unable to attend services on the yahrzeit week’s Friday, it is also possible to have the name of a loved one read on a Friday night other than the one scheduled in a particular year.
MEMORIAL PLAQUES
Our new memorial wall, installed in 2024.
Many of our members have chosen to purchase plaques in memory of their loved ones, for placement on the bronze Memorial Tablets in our Sanctuary. As a community, we have also arranged for plaques in the name of those who helped to build our congregation.
YIZKOR
Yizkor, from the Hebrew prayer phrase “may God remember the soul of…” is the term that describes the memorial service recited by the congregation on Yom Kippur and Shemini Atzeret as well as on the last day of Passover and on Shavuot. It is a mitzvah to attend these particular services and recite the Yizkor, El Malei Rachamin, and Kaddish prayers for one’s deceased relatives. In the Reform Movement, we do not encourage the custom of keeping children whose parents are alive away from Yizkor services. Young people should be taught from an appropriate age the Jewish way of remembering the dead. [Mark Washofsky, Jewish Living]
At BHS, we say yizkor prayers according to the calendar of Reform Judaism: on Yom Kippur afternoon, and during morning services on the 7th day of Sukkot, on the 7th day of Passover, and the 1st day of Shavuot.
On Yom Kippur each year, we publish a Book of Remembrance, with names we wish to remember individually and as a community.
“That the yizkor service has had such wide appeal is to be welcomed, for it helps to bind the generations together in filial piety. Death does not end or break this bond. The virtues of parents work to mitigate some of the faults of children, and the virtues of children work to remove some of the imperfections of parents, ‘To pray for the dead is not an unjustifiable corollary of the belief in God’s boundless mercy… prayer for the peace and salvation of the departed soul commends itself as of the highest religious obligations.’” [Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice]
MAIMONIDES CEMETERY
BEIT HAVERIM (House of Friends)
Several years ago, the Synagogue surveyed its members and found that many of us would like to purchase gravesites within a Jewish cemetery that would also allow us to accommodate the needs of members and their immediate family – parents, siblings, and offspring – even if those family members are not Jewish.
Thus, Beit Chaverim was established, inside Maimonides Cemetery, a small, quiet place in Elmont, just half an hour or so from BHS, over the city line in Nassau County. The Synagogue has purchased 100 plots on behalf of our members; just a few gravesites remain.
Gravesites are available for $3,600 each to our members. For more information about Beit Haverim, or to make a purchase, please email or call our office at 718-522-2070 x122. We invite you to schedule a visit to our sacred grounds.
MOURNER’S KADDISH
Remembering Loved Ones
A BLESSING FOR MOURNERS
Our brothers and sisters who are worn out and crushed by this mourning, let your hearts consider this: this is the path that has existed from the time of creation and will exist forever. Many have drunk from it and many will yet drink. As was the first cup, so shall be the last. Our brothers and sisters— may the Author of Solace comfort you. Blessed is the One who comforts the mourners.
-Bavli Ketubot 8b
Click here to download a PDF of the Mourner’s Kaddish in Hebrew, English, and Hebrew Transliteration.
Listen to an audio recording of the Mourner’s Kaddish below.