What to expect
You don’t need to know the details before you meet with us.
We will take you through each decision — including burial or cremation, when and where the funeral will take place, who will conduct it and what the service might include — one step at a time.
Arranging a funeral is something most of us only do a few times in our lives.
It can feel like there are a lot of decisions to make at exactly the time when making decisions is hardest.
You don’t need to know how funerals work, and you don’t need to have everything decided before you speak with us.
We will guide you through the arrangements, explain the choices available and help you create a funeral that is right for the person who has died and for your family.
When you contact Bet-Olam Jewish Funerals (BOJF), we will begin by asking for some basic information about the person who has died, the circumstances of their death and where the person is, at the moment.
We will explain what needs to happen immediately and arrange for the person who has died to be brought into our care when the necessary medical documentation and permissions are in place.
We will then arrange a time to talk through the funeral arrangements with you.
You are welcome to have other family members or a trusted friend involved in these conversations.
You don’t need to prepare extensively.
If possible, try to find any information the person who died may have left about their funeral wishes, including a prepaid funeral plan or other written instructions.
We will also need some personal information to register the death, including details such as:
- full legal name
- date and place of birth
- residential address
- marital or relationship details
- details of parents, partners, siblings and children
including dates and places of birth and death - occupation
Don’t worry if you don’t have everything when we first meet.
We will explain exactly what information is required and help you work through it.
There are several decisions involved in arranging a funeral, but they do not all have to be made at once.
We will take you through them one at a time.
Burial or cremation
While Jewish tradition has historically favoured burial, and burial remains important to many Jewish families, some families prefer to choose cremation.
BOJF will explain the practical arrangements involved in each option so that you can make the choice that is right for your circumstances and the wishes of the person who died.
When and where the funeral will take place
Jewish funerals traditionally take place relatively soon after death.
The actual timing will depend on several things, including when the person who died can be released into our care, cemetery or crematorium availability, the family’s circumstances and the availability of the person you would like to conduct the service.
We will work with you to find an appropriate time and place.
Who will conduct the funeral
You may already know whom you would like to conduct the funeral.
This might be your rabbi, another rabbi or a civil celebrant.
If you do not have someone in mind, that is fine too.
We can discuss the possibilities with you and help you find an appropriate person.
The choice of officiant belongs to the family.
The person who will conduct the funeral will meet with you to talk about the person who has died and help plan the service.
Depending on your wishes, the service might include:
- Jewish prayers and readings
- a eulogy or personal reflections
- contributions from family or friends
- music and poetry
- particular readings or poems
- other elements that were meaningful to the person who died or to your family.
Some families wish to write and deliver their own eulogies or reflections. Others prefer that the person conducting the funeral do that on their behalf. This is something to discuss with your officiant at your meeting with them.
A Jewish funeral can be deeply traditional, highly personal or somewhere in between. That choice is yours.
You may wish to observe traditional Jewish practices associated with death and burial.
Bet-Olam has a team of dedicated and trained volunteers who will perform tahara, the ritual preparation of the body and dress your loved ones in simple white shrouds. We also provide a plain wooden coffin which, together with the shrouds, symbolise how we are all equal in death.
Your officiant will explain other options and their meaning so you can decide what is appropriate for your family. These include keriah the traditional ritual of tearing one’s clothing or ribbon as a physical expression of grief and mourning and the participation of mourners in the burial by placing earth into the grave.
Jewish tradition offers a series of markers to help guide mourners through the grieving process. They include Shivah, Shloshim and Yahrzeit. The person conducting your funeral service will discuss these with you.
Some families choose to observe all of these traditions; others choose to observe some or none.
Your Funeral Director will discuss how, when and to whom funeral details will be made available.
You may wish to contact family, friends, a synagogue or other community organisations yourself. If you or the person who died are/was a member of a synagogue, and you would like us to let them know, please do ask us to do that.
You decide who should be informed and what information you would like shared.
We will be transparent about the costs involved before arrangements are finalised.
The costs we will quote will include BOJF’s services as well as charges from cemeteries, crematoria and other providers.
Where there are choices that affect the cost, we will explain them clearly so you can make an informed decision.
Please feel comfortable asking what something costs and whether there are alternatives.
Your choices are our tradition.
We will make sure you know where you need to be, when you need to arrive and what will happen.
Our role is to take care of the practical arrangements so that you and your family can concentrate on saying goodbye.
There is no particular way you are expected to feel, behave or dress at a funeral.
You might cry, but you might not.
You might find yourself laughing at something in a eulogy or you might simply be concentrating on getting through the day.
Often, all of the above might happen.
None of this is unusual. All of this is normal.
Families sometimes worry about whether they are making the right decisions.
There may be strong traditions in your family. There may be none.
Family members might also have different ideas about what they want or what they think the person who has died would have wanted. And sometimes nobody knows.
A meaningful funeral does not depend on getting every detail perfect but is about treating the person who has died with dignity and creating an opportunity for those who knew them to acknowledge their life and say goodbye.