A Jewish Burial in Rural Saskatchewan

When a man’s final request was to be buried in a simple pine box in Rural Saskatchewan, his non-Jewish sister-in-law happened to call a rabbi. After much effort, he was laid to rest in a Jewish cemetery that matched that description, the first person to be buried there in more than 70 years.

By Tzemach Feller – Lubavitch.com

It started with a phone call. Rabbi Avrohom Simmonds got a call from an American phone number. The caller was reaching out on behalf of her sister Amy*, who lived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her husband of 35 years, Max* had passed away, and his final requests had been to be buried in Rural Saskatchewan—and in a simple pine box.

Simmonds is the Chabad representative in Regina, Saskatchewan. It made sense to call a rabbi, the sister thought. She had done some research and learned that burial in a simple pine box is a Jewish practice.

But Amy had no idea that Max was Jewish. Not once, in 35 years of marriage, had he mentioned it. Why would his final request be to be buried like a Jew? 

Could it be? Simmonds put them in touch with his colleague, Rabbi Raphael Kats, of Chabad of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  

Rabbi Kats now did his own research, confirming Max was Jewish and even learning his Jewish name. Incredibly, Max and his parents had belonged to the same Cleveland, Ohio synagogue where Rabbi Kats and his wife Sarah had been married. Max’s widow had found a rural, Christian cemetery, and now, as she looked into the simple pine box, she had gotten in touch with Chabad. The rabbis, of course, suggested that Max receive a full Jewish burial.

“For me the most important thing is that it’s a pine box and a rural cemetery,” Amy told Rabbi Kats. “I want to honor him by giving him a Jewish burial, but that’s secondary to me; Judaism wasn’t a big part of his life.”

Amy was willing to follow the halachic guidelines for Jewish burial in a non-Jewish cemetery, which include purchasing the nearby plots and putting up a fence—essentially creating a Jewish cemetery within the existing one. But then the cemetery told her that they’d need a week’s notice to open a grave.

As it happens, Saskatchewan, of all places, has multiple rural Jewish cemeteries. They trace their existence to the beginning of the 20th century, when Baron Maurice de Hirsch founded Jewish farming settlements across the Canadian prairie. One such cemetery is located in the tiny village of Lipton, Saskatchewan, which was once home to a Jewish farming colony. The last time someone had been buried there was in 1951. 

Rabbis Kats and Simmonds had each independently suggested Lipton.  Then they got another call from the sister, who’d been doing her own research, and suggested a cemetery she had discovered—the one in Lipton. Now they turned to that option. Rabbi Simmonds called Beth Jacob, the Regina synagogue that tends to the cemetery, and asked about the possibility of someone being buried there. They gave the green light.

“I told the widow, ‘Look, we’re not prophets. G-d communicates with us through different events, serendipity, Divine personal providence.’” Kats related. “‘Max and his parents belonged to the same shul where Sarah and I got married—what are the chances of that? What are the chances you contact a rabbi who has that connection to the family? What are the chances that two rabbis—and your sister—each came up with the Lipton Jewish Cemetery independently?”

Amy agreed.

Rabbi Kats, who is a kohen, could not be directly involved in the process of preparing the deceased for burial. So two of Rabbi Simmonds’ nephews, rabbinical students Chaim Yitzchok and Menachem Mendel Heidingsfeld, drove six hours from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Regina, where they met up with Rabbi Simmonds. The trio then drove another three hours to Outlook, Saskatchewan, where the deceased was located and where they performed the taharah, the ritual cleansing of the body. 

They then drove another three hours to the Jewish cemetery in Lipton, where—for the first time in more than 70 years—a Jewish person was laid to rest.

As was his final request, Yehuda Dovid Ben Nosson was brought to his eternal rest in a Jewish rural cemetery, in a simple pine box.

*Names changed to protect identities.