![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vault-bottomless-cemetery-burial-1024x656.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAt Alice’s fitness class, a woman asked if Alice was a widow. The asker was a widow. Alice said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not a widow, but my husband talks a lot about dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nice, Alice.<\/p>\n
I’m thinking of switching burial plots. Alice and I are slotted for a Reform Jewish quadrant in a nondenominational cemetery. At this cemetery (Hillcrest), you’re required to use a six-sided concrete vault around your coffin. And you need a plastic liner. Whatever happened to dust to dust?<\/p>\n
I\u00a0 recently ran into an Orthodox rabbi at another cemetery. He said I could go with a bottomless vault and no plastic liner at many exclusively Jewish cemeteries. I had never heard of a bottomless vault.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m all for bottomless vaults. Worms don\u2019t bother me. Being stuffed into a six-sided vault bothers me. My wife doesn’t care. Dead is dead to her.<\/p>\n
My synagogue’s cemetery (Bet Olam) allows bottomless vaults. I might move my butt over there. But Bet Olam is at a very busy traffic intersection. It’s not as bucolic as Hillcrest.<\/p>\n
I’ve got to think about this.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Have you ever noticed how many people die without obits? No funeral, no wake, no shiva, nothing. Here and then gone, poof.<\/p>\n
I’ve been searching the obit pages for years for one Ed V., whom I used to live with. Ed and I shared a duplex in Cleveland Heights in the mid-1970s. Ed was a major slob, and that was a real eyeopener for me. Now —\u00a0 some five decades later — I\u2019ve seen plenty tenants’ suites that make Ed look like a neat-freak. He had crap all over his bedroom and never washed anything.<\/p>\n
He was also a compulsive liar and would jabber on the phone for hours, jacking around telemarketers and anybody else who called. He owed a lot of people money. He was a security guard.<\/p>\n
He had epilepsy. A 6-2 heavyset guy, he once smacked the floor and foamed at the mouth and bled from a grand mal seizure. That was another eyeopener.<\/p>\n
Years ago I could search the Social Security index for dead people, but the government has stopped listing dead people. Too much fraud, I guess.<\/p>\n
Ed must be dead. He was in bad health even when he was young. He smoked nonstop.<\/p>\n
If you see him, let me know.<\/p>\n
An acquaintance — Larry — just died. I googled him. Nada. What’s going on with publicity-shy dead people?<\/p>\n
Whenever a Cleveland Jew dies, you’ll hear about it in the\u00a0Cleveland Jewish News<\/em>. But Larry was a Buddhist — former Jew. I doubt his name will pop up in the CJN <\/em>obits.<\/p>\n My uncle Bob Kent, ensconced in Georgia, read the Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em> online for obits. He had grown up in Cleveland. He often said his dreams were about Cleveland. Particularly riding the Cleveland streetcars.<\/p>\n I recognize about two names a week in the Cleveland obits. I might not know the dead person personally but I know of<\/em> them. I’ve lived in Cleveland forever. Many Clevelanders are nuts about Cleveland sports teams. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just pointing out a pattern in obits.<\/p>\n What about Mayfield Cemetery in Cleveland Heights? I like the fact it’s in the Heights, but I\u2019d probably have to rejoin the Reform congregation (which owns the cemetery) to get in. And I doubt Mayfield Cemetery allows bottomless vaults. Super Reform.<\/p>\n Just googled Mayfield Cemetery. . . . Mayfield allows bottomless vaults.<\/p>\n Now what?<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n (A member of my wife’s book club brought in a lengthy, laudatory obit about Larry, the Buddhist, from the Plain Dealer<\/em>. I missed the obit. Sue me.)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At Alice’s fitness class, a woman asked if Alice was a widow. The asker was a widow. Alice said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not a widow, but my husband talks a lot about dying.\u201d Nice, Alice. I’m thinking of switching burial plots. Alice and I are slotted for a Reform Jewish quadrant in a nondenominational cemetery. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34700"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34822,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34700\/revisions\/34822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}