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Hello everyone–Before I get to my initial question here’s a bit of back story–For the past few weeks our cemetery committee has been discussing possibly selling plots in our cemetery to other synagogues without a cemetery so that their congregants have a specific place (i.e. Birth Shalom’s Section) within our cemetery to be buried. We already allow members and non-members to be buried in our cemetery, along with non-Jewish spouses and children. We have a member and non-member rate when it comes to purchasing plots that’s a significant difference. I was asked by the committee to reach out to see if;
1. Do you guys discount plot purchases when someone buys as a group or in our case if the “section buying” is implemented and they’re purchasing 10+ at a time?
2. Do you guys allow non-Jewish spouse or children burial in your cemetery?I’d like to be able to take your answers, comments, and/or suggestions to our committee.
Thanks, Christian
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Hi Christian,
At Temple Beth El Memorial Park, the cemetery is open to the entire Jewish community. We have separate prices for members and non-members. We have an agreement with two area synagogues to allow their congregation the member prices for plots. However, since they don’t actively contribute anything to the maintenance of the cemetery, we charge them non-member prices for burial fees, such as opening/closing and a liner. We (I) also sell markers for the cemetery which is another revenue stream for us. Temple Beth El Memorial Park does have an interfaith section where we allow non-Jewish spouses or children to be buried with their Jewish family members and we do accept cremains. We don’t discount for purchasing multiple plots.
The other cemetery I manage – Mount Sinai Cemetery is a historical Orthodox cemetery. We have had interest from an area synagogue who wants to reserve a block of plots. We did not offer them a discount, but that agreement has not gone through as our Board cannot agree to allow cremains to be buried in that cemetery.
I’m happy to send you a copy of each of the cemetery guidelines to take back to your committee if that helps.
Sherri
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Sherri thank you so much! That was super helpful! I will gladly take a copy of your guidelines. Please send them to christians@emanuelhouston.org.
Thank you so much,
CS
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