[Avodah] levayah minhagim

[Arie Folger]

RAF[rimmer, who-shares-initials-with-me] wrote:
>  In the United States, the general custom I observed at religious funerals
> was to have all family members (male and female) go through the shura
> together which was made up of men and women. At my first funeral in Israel
> ca 1974, I noted that the Chevra Kadisha instructed only the men to make a
> shura for only the male mourners.  I asked the head of the Chevra Kadisha
> and he indicated that that's what is found in Rav Tackatchinsky's Gesher
> haChaim.

Our Kehillah has been in uninterrupted operation for more than 200 years. 
Consequently, our cemetary traditions are old, as well. Men and women remain 
separate at funerals, with women staying furtehr away from the grave while 
the men fill it. Then, once the men retreat, after the shurah, which is only 
for men by men, women are free to come to the grave.

Is that, which you describe as the American custom of yore perhaps not the way 
it was done way back, after all, but rather the compromise that came about 
when Orthodoxy was still insecure? (This is a sociological argument and not a 
halakhic one)

Kind regards,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com