Can a Jew with a tattoo ever be buried in a Jewish cemetery?

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Forum -> Judaism -> Halachic Questions and Discussions

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mommalah

Mon, May 09 2011, 5:42 pm

Are there any exceptions or is this just a hard and fast halacha?

imabima

Mon, May 09 2011, 5:47 pm

This is a myth altogether. I have a tatoo (from my 'previous life') and asked my Rav. He said it's not a problem.

Think of it this way also: would a holocaust survivor with a tattoo be denied burial?

mommalah

Mon, May 09 2011, 5:50 pm

imabima wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. embarrassed

bubby

Mon, May 09 2011, 6:42 pm

I've said it before & I'll say it again (teacher voice, here!!)

I am on the Chevra Kadisha. There is ABSOLUTELY NO PROHIBITION AGAINST KEVURA!! Rolling Eyes

After 120, the tattooed lady & the non-tattoed lady will be next to each other in the ground & making friends in Gan Eden.

DO NOT GIVE IT ANOTHER THOUGHT. I am 1000% correct (I even checked.)

Phew. Can we now bury this issue (pun intended)?

StrawberrySmoothie

Mon, May 09 2011, 6:48 pm

Another myth we were taught in BY! Now I'm wondering why they teach us false information. Is it a scare tactic so we don't all get tattoos? Rolling Eyes

bubby

Mon, May 09 2011, 6:57 pm

StrawberrySmoothie wrote:

Another myth we were taught in BY! Now I'm wondering why they teach us false information. Is it a scare tactic so we don't all get tattoos? Rolling Eyes

You were actually taught this stuff? Actually, I shouldn't be surprised, there are a lot of ignorant teachers out there (my former 8th grade students came to me when they were in 9th grade to say their English teacher told them they don't capitalize the days of the week. shock

) So I shouldn't be surprised at Halachic mis-information, although it is a lot more frightening than writing "thursday."

StrawberrySmoothie

Mon, May 09 2011, 7:04 pm

bubby wrote:

StrawberrySmoothie wrote:

Another myth we were taught in BY! Now I'm wondering why they teach us false information. Is it a scare tactic so we don't all get tattoos? Rolling Eyes

) So I shouldn't be surprised at Halachic mis-information, although it is a lot more frightening than writing "thursday."

Yep. I remember very clearly. When we asked about Holocaust survivors, we were told that they can because they didn't choose to be non jewish and get the tattoos.

Um, ok. I just realized now that I should have realized THEN how stupid it sounded. embarrassed

someoneoutthere

Mon, May 09 2011, 7:27 pm

It is very possible that some chevra kaddishas had such a rule (all kinds of rules existed with different Chevra Kaddisha) as their own thing, but it's not halacha.

As one head of a Chevra Kadisha once put it to me: do we give the Jew who didn't keep kosher a proper Jewish burial? Ok, so this is also a mitzva, and perhaps the person didnt keep it, but it has as much a bearing on the right to a Jewish burial as the treif food.

StrawberrySmoothie, whomever taught you that was teaching out of ignorance, no knowledgeable BY teacher I've ever had (and there were a whole lot) ever said something like that.

amother

Mon, May 09 2011, 7:47 pm

I heard that you are not allowed to make permanent make-up bc you cant be buried in jewish cemetary. Not true??

zaq

Mon, May 09 2011, 8:08 pm

You can't get permanent makeup because it's a tattoo, which is an issur mideoraita, not because you can't have a jewish burial. I think that nonsense about burial must be bandied about to scare people who might otherwise choose to flout the law. We may not much care what we do during our lives, but man are we concerned about what happens to us after death!

a suicide can't be buried in a jewish cemetery, but they almost always are. the assumption is that the person did teshuva just before death, or that there is no absolute proof that it was suicide, or that anyone who commits suicide is obviously not in his right mind and therefore not responsible for his actions. every effort is made to find justification for not burying a suicide outside of a jewish cemetery. Suicide al kiddush hashem is a separate case and is of course buried in a Jewish cemetery.

But don't even think about so-called permanent makeup. halachicly it's no different from an anchor on your upper arm with a ribbon that reads "Mom".

ewa-jo

Mon, May 09 2011, 11:45 pm

What about all the baalei teshuva out there?

I heard from a male friend once that men going to the mikveh see one another's tattoos and joke 'oh, so you're a BT too'

amother

Mon, May 09 2011, 11:49 pm

I had also thought that permanent make-up was assur because of the tatoo issue (not that I was interested anyway).

A friend who had gone through chemo and had no eyebrows, eyelashes etc asked a shayla and was told she could do it. I don't know the details but there may be some kinds that while advertised as permanent are really not. So if anybody has this kind of situation it might be worth asking.

c.c.cookie

Mon, May 09 2011, 11:55 pm

Where does this myth even come from???

Inspired

Tue, May 10 2011, 12:05 am

Always. There is no such halacha. It is assur to get a tattoo but nothing to do with how one is buried.

Tamiri

Tue, May 10 2011, 1:09 am

I've seen many many Ethiopians with tattoos and they are buried just like everyone else.

Lovingisrael

Tue, May 10 2011, 2:39 am

As Rabbi J. David Bleich writes in his tradition article, Volume 42, No. 4, on tattoos, "To this day there persists a folk belief, the source of which eludes members of the scholarly community, to the effect that a Jew bearing a tattoo must be denied burial in consecrated ground."

Besiyata Dishmaya

Tue, May 10 2011, 4:06 am

Every Jew even the most non-religious get buried in Jewish cemeteries. If only all non-religious Jews would want that rather than being cremated or to lay next to their loved ones or friends in non-Jewish cemeteries.

bubby

Tue, May 10 2011, 4:07 am

This makes me furious. And sad that people are so afraid of something that isn't even true.

londoner

Tue, May 10 2011, 5:23 am

Like a concentration camp no? Are you serious? Because that's as much a tattoo as a self-chosen butterfly.

Even suicides get buried in Jewish cemetries, just in different places.

bubby

Tue, May 10 2011, 5:37 am

londoner wrote:

Even suicides get buried in Jewish cemetries, just in different places.

That rarely happens today, because the thought is that at the very last second the niftar has charottah & it is therefore halachically classed as accidental, so kevura is as usual. Even a suicide note doesn't mean at the last moment the person still wanted to die.

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