More funeral homes meet Jews' needs
As a growing number of Jewish families move to the suburbs and intermarriage rates increase, more secular mortuaries in the Pittsburgh area are offering Jewish funeral services.
For decades, Jewish mourners in Pittsburgh have gathered at two Jewish funeral homes: the family-owned Ralph Schugar Inc. Funeral Chapel in Shadyside and Burton L. Hirsch Funeral Home in Squirrel Hill.
William Slater II Funeral Service has begun offering Jewish funerals at its six locations, said Dennis Seckinger, who has handled Jewish funerals for the company since 2004.
"We see there is more demand throughout the county," Seckinger said.
Bodies still will be prepared at Slater's Scott location, but Jewish funerals are being conducted at the company's funeral homes in Mt. Washington; Bethel Park; Sharpsburg; Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County; and Burgettstown, Washington County, Seckinger said.
The owners of Ralph Schugar Funeral Home could not be reached for comment about the emerging competition. Burton Hirsch is now operated by the non-Jewish, Canada-based Alderwoods Group.
Other non-Jewish funeral homes in the region conduct Jewish funerals.
Daniel T. D'Alessandro Funeral Home in Lawrenceville, which traditionally conducts Christian funerals, has been holding Jewish funerals for more than a decade, said owner Dan D'Alessandro, who formerly worked for Blank Brothers Inc. Funeral Home, the now-closed Jewish funeral home in Oakland.
Two non-Jewish funeral homes in the McKeesport-White Oak area -- Jennifer Jordan Funeral Home and Striffler of White Oak -- perform Jewish funerals.
"We have been serving the Jewish community in the McKeesport-Glassport-White Oak area for three generations," said Sue Striffler Galeski, Striffler's owner. "We follow the desires of the family in how the deceased are handled."
About 20 percent of Pittsburgh's Jewish community live in the Squirrel Hill area, according to the 2002 Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study conducted by the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.
South Hills claims 14 percent of the area's Jewish population, 13 percent live in eastern suburbs such as Monroeville and 9 percent call Fox Chapel and O'Hara home.
Having Jewish funeral services available in the suburbs would be a convenience to Jewish and intermarried families, local religious leaders say.
"I am delighted to see that there are so many people who take the needs of the Jewish community so seriously," said Rabbi Aaron Bisno of Rodef Shalom Congregation, a Reform synagogue in Oakland. "I can appreciate why someone in the South Hills would want to open up a funeral home that met the needs of Jewish families."
The main differences between Jewish and non-Jewish funeral ceremonies are that Jews typically do not embalm or cremate bodies and tend to bury their dead faster than non-Jews, Bisno said.
"Essentially what we require is that the funeral home or provider is cognizant of and sensitive to the needs and mores of the Jewish community," Bisno said.
No religious mandate calls for Jewish funerals to be held in a Jewish-owned funeral home, said Rabbi Irvin Chinn, leader of Gemilas Chesed Congregation in White Oak. Members of Chinn's synagogue typically have funerals in non-Jewish mortuaries because there are no Jewish funeral homes nearby.
For more observant Jews, what really matters is that the body is prepared for burial and tended to in accordance with Jewish law, Chinn said.
Those rituals, called the tahara, include cleaning the body, purifying it with water and dressing the deceased in linen shrouds. A shomer -- a watcher or custodian -- then stays with the body until it is buried in an all-wooden casket.
The Chevra Kadisha Jewish Burial Society of Greater Pittsburgh -- the White Oak-McKeesport area has its own society -- handles those ministrations at funeral homes throughout the Pittsburgh area.
"Preferably it is done at a Jewish funeral home, but if another funeral home is respectful of the laws and of the Chevra Kadisha and of the rabbi, then it can be done properly," Chinn said.
