The decision of a French court that persons who have purchased plots in Jewish cemeteries must be buried there even if they later adopted another religion was under study today by the Jewish communal leaders.
The Marseilles Jewish community has been ordered to pay costs and damages to a Jewish family which owned a plot in the Jewish cemetery but which had been refused permission by the Marseilles rabbinate to bury a relative who had become a Catholic.
The Central Jewish Consistory here has been advising local Jewish communities to change the contracts for purchase of cemetery plots to avoid this difficulty in the future. It was considered doubtful, however, that such stipulations would have any effect in situations where the Jewish cemetery is a section of a municipal cemetery, which is often the case.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
