Jewish Grave Customs: Why Stones Instead of Flowers, and What Is Appropriate to Send

If you visit a Jewish cemetery you will notice small stones resting on top of the headstones and few, if any, flowers. Both are matters of tradition rather than rule, and both are worth understanding before you visit a Jewish grave or send something to the family.

Why stones

Placing a small stone on a grave is the Jewish equivalent of leaving flowers: it shows that someone visited and remembered. Several explanations are given. Stones last, where flowers wilt, and so suit a tradition that emphasizes the permanence of memory. In ancient times stones marked and protected graves. The Hebrew word for pebble, tz'ror, also means bond, and the stone binds the visitor to the person. Whichever explanation a family prefers, the custom is the same: pick up a stone, place it on the marker, and leave it.

Visitors of any faith are welcome to do the same. It is, in fact, the most appropriate thing a non-Jewish visitor can do at a Jewish grave.

Why not flowers

Traditional Jewish practice discourages flowers at funerals and graves. The reasons offered include the wish to treat rich and poor alike in death, the association of flowers with celebration, and the preference for honoring the dead through charity and study rather than ornament. Many Jewish cemeteries, especially Orthodox ones, prohibit flowers outright and remove any that are left. Others, particularly those serving Reform and Conservative communities, permit them, and it is not unusual to see flowers in those cemeteries. Ask the cemetery or the family before sending any.

What to send instead

• Tzedakah, a charitable donation in the person's name, is the traditional gift and is welcome from anyone. The family's synagogue or a cause the person supported are the usual choices.
• Food for the shiva house in the first week: a meal, a fruit platter, something the mourners do not have to prepare.
• A note with a memory of the person. Written condolence is valued and kept.
• Planting a tree in Israel through the Jewish National Fund, a long-standing memorial gift.

The calendar of a Jewish grave

• Shiva: the seven days of mourning at home after the burial. Visitors come to the house, not the cemetery.
• The unveiling: the headstone is set and dedicated within the first year, often around the eleventh or twelfth month, at a short graveside service. Family and close friends attend.
• Yahrzeit: the anniversary of the death on the Hebrew calendar, marked each year by lighting a candle at home, saying Kaddish, and often visiting the grave.
• Before the High Holidays: many families visit the cemetery in the weeks before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Cemeteries are busiest then.

If the cemetery does permit flowers

In Jewish cemeteries that allow them, flowers are placed as anywhere else, usually in a vase or at the base of the stone, and the ordinary decoration rules apply. Some families with mixed backgrounds place both a stone and flowers. If you are unsure, a stone is never wrong, and the family will tell you if flowers are welcome.