Schedule a JCAM Cemetery Education Tour

Click here for a photo gallery of some "Cemeteries Are For The Living" tours and tzedekah projects.

“Cemeteries Are For The Living”

Educational Cemetery Tours

"Cemeteries Are For The Living" Education Tours Booking for Fall

JCAM's Cemeteries Are for the Living tours are improving each year. This Spring, in addition to the many b'nai mitzvot children and their parents who participated in our tours, JCAM found a number of adult education groups interested in learning about the role Jewish cemeteries play in the rich history of Jewish Boston. JCAM is currently booking cemetery tours for the Fall 2011 season.

Our “Cemeteries Are For The Living” educational program continues to be a great success and cemetery education tours are fast becoming an annual activity with many synagogue and community groups. Take advantage of this unique educational experience for youth groups and adults. Education and community program directors can call on our representative to develop a program specific to your group's needs. With 25 years experience in caring, restoring and ensuring the continuity of Jewish cemeteries in Massachusetts, we are uniquely qualified to bring a new dimension into Jewish education.

Cemeteries Are for the Living tour are being organized by community:

Back To Our Roots - To see where we are today, we look back to where it began. Schedule a "Cemeteries Are for the Living" tour at the first and oldest Jewish cemetery in Massachusetts (1844), located in East Boston. The Ohabei Shalom Cemetery is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a must see. This charming cemetery is filled with unusual headstone iconography, Jewish notables, and loaded with history. There is much to learn about Jewish cemeteries here. It is also the location of the soon to come Mystic River Jewish Exhibit Hall. The chapel located on the grounds of this Jewish cemetery will be transformed into an interactive exhibit dedicated to the early immigrant Jewish communities in East Boston, Chelsea, Revere, Malden, Medford, Everett, Somerville and Winthrop! A "Cemeteries Are for the Living" tour at this cemetery will certainly be a lesson well-learned and a field-trip experience one will find hard to forget. Participating at a cemetery tour at this historic site will tie together how as Jews we came to America as a poor, displaced immigrant group and became a culturally strong community of philanthropy, education, and affluence.

Metrowest Jewish Community - We offer cemetery tours at the historic Framingham/Natick Jewish Cemetery or Beit Olam Cemetery in Wayland. Over half of our tours in 2008-2009 were from synagogues in the Metrowest area!

North Shore Communities - There is an array of historic Jewish cemeteries to visit and we are excited about bringing you more educational opportunities at the Woburn Jewish Cemeteries.

South Shore and Greater Boston Communities - Tours are offered at the Baker Street Cemetery complex in West Roxbury....40 different cemeteries, a community Genizah, mausoleums, Holocaust memorials, so much to see!

We will also have opportunities to participate in community mitzvah projects. Visit our website often for updates.

• Learn about Jewish cemetery symbols and their meanings,
• Why we leave visitation stones,
• The origins and history of Massachusetts’ Jewish cemeteries.
• Find out some of the interesting “stories behind the stones” of Boston Jewish notables.
• Learn Jewish burial customs.
• Learn why we bury books, Torah scrolls and other Jewish artifacts and more by touring local JCAM cemeteries in a friendly and relaxed manner.

We feel it is important to connect Jewish young people with their past through cemetery education. We can help the next generation honor, remember, and connect to the once vibrant Jewish communities their spirited ancestors pioneered through a “Cemeteries Are For The Living” education tour.

You may want to be thinking about your calendar year ahead--tour dates fill up quickly. Call Lisa Berenson at 617-244-6509 to schedule a program time and date or use the Cemetery Education Response Form (below).

*This module is only offered in the fall and spring.

For a free copy of the pamphlet, "End of Life and Beyond: What Does Judaism Say?"
call the JCAM office and we'll mail it to you.

Books Buried According to Jewish Law

“Books should be placed in stately array near the dead, so that the souls of the righteous may in death study as they did on earth.

Judah of Regensburg Sefer Hasidim

Click here to learn more. Guidelines and Regulations for the Burial of Shammot