When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son

This book offers a clear understanding of how Jews deal with death, bereavement and mourning. It provides the reasons behind the customs, the social and cultural meanings that support them and a personal statement by the author. It neatly blends the objective and the subjective yet without blurring the view from each -- a remarkable accomplishment. Best of the Jewish mourning books available.

This is a sensitively written book that combines the analytic view of what death, bereavement and mourning mean to Jewish tradition along with the author's personal experience with the encounter with death. For those who want to know not only what tradition demands but what the underlying sociological, psychological and anthropological meaning behind those traditions is as well as how this all affects those who practice the tradition, this book will be a useful guide. It will take you inside -- deep inside -- what happens when a Jew dies.

Prof. Heilman's book was the comfort of a wise friend when I needed it most, just after I lost my sister to cancer. As a Jew, I wanted to seek solace in my faith after this devastating loss - but, having grown up essentially unaffiliated, I did not quite know where to turn, nor what it all meant. The Jewish rituals of mourning, burial, kaddish - all were largely foreign to me. I was very fortunate to be given Prof. Heilman's book as a gift from a dear friend, and it became my guidebook through what was, for me, new and frighteningly uncharted territory. "When a Jew Dies" provides an explication of Jewish law and custom on death that is understandable to a layman, but textured enough to be of great use to an academic as well. But what I found most warming of all was Heilman's moving account of his own struggle to cope with the death of his father, after a long and nightmarish battle with the effects of a debilitating stroke. Anyone who has suffered a similar loss will find this book an invaluable companion.