Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag (traditions) and mitzvah (commandments) derived from the Torah and Judaism's classical rabbinic literature. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community.
Jewish funeral in Vilnius (1824), National Museum in Warsaw
Yiskor for Herzl, by Boris Schatz.
De treurdagen ("The mourning days") by Jan Voerman, ca 1884
Headstones in the Hebrew Lot, Rose Hill Cemetery, Macon, Bibb County, GA, c.1877.
The term chevra kadisha gained its modern sense of "burial society" in the nineteenth century. It is an organization of Jewish men and women who see to it that the bodies of deceased Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish tradition and are protected from desecration, willful or not, until burial. Two of the main requirements are the showing of proper respect for a corpse, and the ritual cleansing of the body and subsequent dressing for burial. It is usually referred to as a burial society in English.
Hevra Kadisha for Sefaradim, the Or-Hachaim Gate
Chevra kadisha medal from 1876, on the occasion of the 200-year jubilee of the chevra kadisha of Gailingen. In the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland.
