Texts for Our Times: (i) Maimonides on Consoling (July 17); (ii) Chevrah Traditions: Adapted or Adopted? (July 24) with Dr. Isaac Pollak

​Join us for a text-study around Chevrah Kadisha Traditions as well as Maimonides on consoling. This Ben Zakkai series is designed for anyone who is interested in learning more about Jewish death practices: Jews and those who love them as well as professionals that might be in the role of supporting Jewish families at the end of life.

​This is a two-session Learning Series in which we will explore and examine two different but related topics as follows:

​In the first session, we will consider the question: When there is no one to console the death of a person, is consoling done or even necessary? Who consoles whom?

In the second session, we will examine the question: Chevrah Kadisha Traditions: “Halacha, Habit, or Ritual: Adapted or Adopted?”. We will explore the categories listed below:

• ​First recorded chevrah

• ​What are shrouds

• ​Earliest Jewish shrouds

• ​Why linen

• ​Why white

• ​Flowers on a tombstone

• ​A biblical case for cremation

• ​Burying upright

• ​Burying with a fork in ones hand

• ​Talis on women

​Dr. Isaac Pollak

​Isaac Pollak is the President and CEO of an international marketing business, and is semi-retired after 45 years. He holds graduate degrees in Marketing, Industrial Psychology, Art History, and Jewish Material Culture from City College, LIU, JTS, and Columbia University. He has been the rosh/head of a Chevrah Kadisha on the upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC, for 46 years doing taharah for any Jew who wants to be buried in the traditional fashion, and is an avid collector of Chevrah Kadisha material cultural items, having several hundred in his own collection. He serves as chairperson of the Acquisition Committee for Traditional Material Culture at the Jewish Museum in NYC.

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​If you would like to request a webinar for your community on this content presented by a JADE educator, please email david@jadeinfo.org.

​​​This event is made possible by our generous JADE donors.