Innovative interfaith cemetery is now open

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This article was published 08/02/2012 (5234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The gates to a groundbreaking interfaith cemetery are now open.

On Jan. 30, the River Heights-based Shaarey Zedek synagogue opened the new segregated cemetery named Shaarey Shamayim — the Hebrew term for Gates of Heaven — on Main Street at Armstrong Avenue in West Kildonan.

Shaarey Zedek executive director Ian Staniloff said the cemetery is the first in Canada that’s owned and operated by a specific synagogue that allows couples made up of one Jew and one non-Jew to be buried side-by-side.

He said the cemetery — which was constructed on land in the northwest corner of the synagogue’s larger existing cemetery and can accommodate between 100 and 150 double plots — will serve a growing need in the community.

“A number of our members are not Jewish and this will ensure they will be able to be buried with their spouse,” Staniloff said.

“Our objective has been to develop a plan which respects Jewish Standards and traditions, yet allows the burial of Jews and non-Jews together.”

Staniloff, who lives in River Heights, said Winnipeg’s Jewish population numbers approximately 16,000 yet “up to 70% of our young people are marrying outside the faith.”

And in the past, the Jewish spouse was forced to make a crucial decision — either be buried alone in a Jewish cemetery or with their partner elsewhere.   

Staniloff said one challenge has been to “balance the traditional requirements of Jewish burial with the demographic reality of interfaith families and the need to provide comfort for the mourners.”

The synagogue’s Rabbi Alan Green led research into best practices in other communities in North America to help draft policies and procedures for the two cemeteries.

Staniloff noted how the non-Jewish bodies will be contracted out to a mortuary and “prepared in a similar fashion to the Jewish manner.”

And to maintain the tradition of the main cemetery, the interfaith plot is surrounded by a roadway, wrought-iron fence and shrubbery and has its own separate entrance and gate.

“We’re being accommodating to the community-at-large. Factor in this is the world we live in, where couples want to be buried together,” Staniloff said.

Shaarey’s Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker said the move is significant for the synagogue and its future generations.

“This represents a major step for the synagogue in its philosophy of the conservative movement,” said Pinsker, who lives in Linden Woods.

“A significant number of households are becoming dual faith and many non-Jews have been instrumental in shaping their identification with the Jewish people.”

For more information, visit www.shaareyzedek.mb.ca.

simon.fuller@canstarnews.com