I am surprised and disturbed by the tone of Rabbi Grossman’s post stating her opposition to allowing non-Jews to be buried with their Jewish spouses in a Jewish cemetery. She writes: “Let us… not undermine the final resting places of those who currently rest in peace.” It almost appears that Rabbi Grossman believes that the…

What should Pres. Bush learn from Pharaoh? Virtual Talmud’s Susan Grossman explores this question in this article on Beliefnet, written in response to the president’s State of the Union address earlier this week. Click here to read and respond to the piece. We now return to our regularly scheduled Virtual Talmud debate for this week…

So burial grounds have now become the new battle grounds for American Jewish identity. In a responsa regarding the permissibility of burying Jews and non-Jews together, Rabbi David Golikin, whom I have enormous respect for, closes his ruling that both Jewish and non-Jewish burial grounds must remain separated by saying, “Let us hope and pray…

In his piece on whether non-Jews should be buried in Jewish cemeteries, Rabbi Waxman goes too far, in my book, by suggesting that a Jewish cemetery fully retains its Jewish character if non-Jews are buried within it. Is a cemetery still Jewish when a priest or other religious leader officiates over a burial? When the…

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