This morning, I read a news story about a new cemetery in Kfar Saba, in Israel. The Jerusalem Post article about the cemetery notes that this cemetery will provide options for interfaith couples who want to be buried together. Civil burials have been legal in Israel since 1996, when the Knesset passed an Alternative Burial Law. Until that time, death, like other lifecycle events, was governed by the religious community of the individual. Israel inherited this system from the British Mandate government, which in turn maintained what was in place under Ottoman rule, so for centuries, interfaith couples in the land of Israel couldn’t be buried near one another.

Until recently, the only burial option for interfaith couples (and presumably for anyone whom the Israeli rabbinate didn’t consider Jewish) was to be buried on one of the kibbutzim that shared non-religious cemetery space. The Kfar Saba plots will cost much less than kibbutz burials. Residents in Kfar Saba will pay what everyone in Israel pays to bury relatives in government cemeteries.

According to the article about the cemetery in Haaretz, The society that maintains the cemetery is called Menucha Nechona or “correct rest,” which is resonant with the words of the Jewish memorial prayer, El Malei Rachamim (God, Full of Mercy). The civil cemetery will allow people to have secular burials with such customs as coffins and music at funerals, though these are not allowed in state Jewish funerals, but I don’t see this as an anti-religious effort. The regular burial society of Kfar Saba cooperated with the new group in dedicating some of the burial ground as a traditional Jewish cemetery, and there will be Orthodox burials there in additional to liberal Jewish burials and secular, non-religious ones. Allowing immigrants from other countries burials in a style that they are used to is secondary to the issue of being able to bury families together.

For interfaith families in Israel, this is a step forward. It also provides a model for Jews in the diaspora. The Jewish community is pluralistic, it contains non-Jewish family members and it has to accommodate difference. Our cemeteries should allow for all of that too.