December 2019
burial rituals
Morocco had a vibrant Jewish community for centuries. The Jews were expelled from Spain alongside Muslims during the Reconquista and many of them settled in Moroccan cities creating their own neighborhoods called "mellah". With the founding of Israel, nearly the entire Jewish population left the country. The old Jewish quarters left behind were still called mellah, but now were occupied by Moroccan Arabs or Berbers. What could not be taken to the other side of the Mediterranean, however, were graves. Meknes had a huge, old Jewish cemetery inside some of its kilometers of walls.
In Japan there were "foreigner cemeteries" in Nagasaki, Kobe, and Hakodate. In Rome, there was also a foreigner's cemetery just for non-Italians who had spent their last days in the Eternal City. Across Malaysia there were (usually on hillsides) Chinese cemeteries which looked totally different from Malay Muslim graveyards. The phenomenon has always been fascinating to me - although some people choose to live among others of their own tribe or religion, others do not. In death, however, everyone needs to buried with their religious or racial brethren. How completely odd since I know of no religion that canonically specifies people must be buried among their own. Cemeteries are nearly always "traditional". What kind of secret communion occurred six feet under?
We can be born at the hands of a foreign doctor or midwife. We can attend a school that is not of our religion or language. We can live in a neighborhood where we are the only people of our race or belief. We can enjoy eating food from all over the world. We can shit in a toilet bowl directly after someone totally different to ourselves. We can play sports or watch movies with people of different religions and social classes. What we cannot do, however, is decay below ground next to anyone who is not very similar to us in religion or ethnicity.
Humans are very strange indeed. We can live together (kind of) in diversity, but we have to Rest in Peace surrounded by strangers who only share some very unimportant commonalities with us.
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