Notice of Death by group text???

I have four brothers and the oldest has always been my favorite. He was a Marine in Vietnam. He was so young when he went...just 19 years old. He came back quite changed. He married and had two babies die of crib death. Two! I think it was because of his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam as many returning vets had problems with their offspring. (We had no history of this in our family and had many healthy babies born and raised.) He and his wife divorced - talk about grief...it tore them apart. But they remain friends...and are friends even now as they live in the same town. Some people let grief change them for the worse...but for my brother the opposite is true. He is the kindest, most generous, sensitive soul. And he is quite funny, and very accepting of everyone. He still has the discipline and strength of a soldier...but the soul of a saint. He spends most of his time hiking in the forests along the coast in the Northwest. He is truly a testament to the truth that..whatever life hands us...we still make our own path. He chose the high road...early on...when he returned from war. And he has never wavered.

Wow your brother has quite a life. So sorry about his children. So sad. Yes grief doesn’t bring people together as everyone grieves alone. I did some type of research paper in college on effect of grief on families and statistically most couples don’t stay together after losing children mainly because grief doesn’t unite people, and grief changes people too much to stay together. It’s good they stayed friends. It means a lot

Rituals do help. I agree

We have to be extremely organized when death occurs because we burry next day or maximum a day after and you have to follow routine. My mom passed away at 5am and we were on the phones starting 8am and in a funeral home making arrangements at 10am, you have to get funeral sorted right away and shiva and get rabbi for shiva and food for everyone all in one day, we were going to have funeral next day, but had to do a day after because family from overseas couldn’t get on the plane until next morning as it was too late.

I think being that busy and organized takes over your grief and helps you to stay sane. Although my dad was totally insane the entire time. He stopped being insane this February, after we had her first death anniversary. He came to terms I think. He literally said “I strangely feel better”. Me and my brother looked at each other funny, but then we understood what he meant. But right after her death anniversary my uncle died. Ugh start all over. Story for another day.

But I agree it’s important and helpful to follow prescribed ritual. It does help to get through and stay connected and busy.

Sorry didn’t mean to hijack, just joining in on the topic of funerals

I am familiar with all this because my ex-spouse was Jewish. They had a deeply religious thing for his Mom and because I wasn't Jewish I was not permitted to attend. As she was literally my Mom since my own Mom died when I was young this made me sad. My ex wasn't religious and he was kind of upset as he said it wasn't what his Mom would have wanted. His older brother arranged everything.

I am beginning to think I have a lot of emotion around death rituals!

Even though I am not Jewish and divorced, every year I buy one of those Memorial Candles and let it burn until it is all gone...as a way of remembering my mother-in-law and father-in-law, who I loved very much. They themselves were not very religious so I imagine they would be pleased with my gesture - as it's a simple gesture of love and gratitude. They would have preferred their son marry a nice Jewish girl, but he remarried and again she wasn't Jewish...so I can see them shrugging, like, what are you gonna do?

Well, everyone is posting condolences on Facebook for my cousin...and his brother messaged me and thanked me for my condolence. Whew! At least that was okay.

I think maybe I was on some kind of "B" list because of being sent a group text.

I'm glad I told my brother not to inform me of any more deaths by group email or group text.


What is interesting is that my brother isn't on Facebook...so he probably doesn't realize a lot of communication goes on there. I am connected with all my cousins there so I will know about any future deaths in the family that way.

My brother just self-appointed himself in this role and frankly I never liked it, so now that I have distanced myself from group texts all is well that ends well.

I am shocked. I have never ever heard of anyone of any faith or no faith not allowed to attend a funeral or shiva or anything else related to a Jewish person passing. There are no Jewish customs prohibiting non Jews taking part in shiva, none, no such rules (they don’t have to participate but they aren’t to be deliberately excluded). I’d say your ex and his family made some stuff up for whatever reason. Not good. How do you say to your spouse not to come? Anyone can attend anything. Especially once’s spouse.

Glad to hear he is an ex.

I’d say it does sound like there would be some difficult emotions around rituals of death if you are repeatedly slighted like this by your own family, even a spouse! I am frustrated on your behalf. Stick with your kind hearted brother and your son. The rest of them can go you know where

No, it wasn't my ex. It was his brother and his brother's wife. We were in California and they were in Florida. They expressly told my ex that I would not be allowed to attend. As I recall my ex was afraid to tell me...like I would go crazy over it. Well, I was upset. But so was my ex. His brother and his wife very explicitly said I could not attend because I wasn't Jewish. They really took charge of the whole thing and we were so far away we couldn't really be a part of the arrangements...which happened very quickly. At the time they were extremely Orthodox. So if they just made that up...how bizarre! They told my ex that everything was being done very orthodox...and my ex was like, whatever. He was really just upset about his Mom passing away very suddenly. We both were.


No, my ex really had nothing to do with it. He wasn't religious at all. Anyway...we already had been through a lot because when we decided to get married BOTH SIDES of our families refused to attend any kind of wedding. We ended up getting married by a Unitarian minister with a handful of friends. So we were already "warriors" about this kind of thing.
Neither of our families were happy about us getting married for cultural and religious reasons.

I really want to add we had a very happy marriage until the very end and the divorce was amiable. He was and is a great father.



PS Yes, good advice to stick with my kind-hearted brother, my sweet son, and his also-sweet girlfriend. It's a small tribe at the moment but a very nice one.

Oh my bad. If it’s not him, then they are terrible people then. What jerks, they just didn’t want you there. Non Jews aren’t excluded from Orthodox ritual either. Your husband was probably embarrassed how they were. People like this bring a shame to all of us. Oh well. Some people are just nuts

This is so crazy because I don't think I have ever discussed this with anyone. No, I don't recall my ex being embarrassed. No. He wasn't like that. We both thought his brother was kind of a jerk. But, darn, I really can't believe this. His brother was this very powerful Alpha dude and it was impossible to argue with him. Same with his wife. But I do recall this event and I do recall it was all about my not being able to attend for religious reasons.

If my ex thought otherwise he would have just told me that they were being jerks and I would have understood that. It's weird because I don't talk to my ex so can't confirm this. I think at the time he was just crazy with grief and I think that's what he would say now. He would probably say he couldn't remember the details. Also, a lot of other stuff was going on at the time I can't go into...so it was a stressful period.

I am glad I talked about this because I am glad to hear that was wrong. If I told my ex about this conversation I think he would be surprised but he would say...oh well, we always knew they were jerks.

Divine is right. As far as I know there is absolutely no exclusion of anyone in attending a Jewish ceremony. In Orthodoxy ALL women sit on one side, men on the other. Women do not read from the Torah,(the actual scrolls, the printed books passed out are okay) only men read the scrolls. Those people purposely went to exclude you! How horrible!

You’ve had some bad luck with funerals.

I’m glad everyone is okay with the facebook condolences. I think in my case, my cousin was going to say something rude no matter what we did. It’s funny how it’s such proof of gossip that it got back to me months later that she was mad at us. Trash talk went all around the country until it got back to me. Then, I sheepishly mailed a card.

I think one problem with or celebrations and sad life events being disappointing when it comes to support of those close to us, is that everybody has moved far away. So it’s harder to be there. Sometimes, all they care to give is a group text. We feel like we are worth so much less to them. Back in the day, they had to call on the phone. They lived not far and they would attend the event.

“Shiva takes place in the home of the spouse, parent, sibling or child of the deceased. The mourning family opens their home and invites family, friends, and community to meet them in their grief. Though shiva is a religious event, any non-Jews are welcome to this event.”

Yup. Actually even though Orthodox would normally separate during workshop, during funeral women would actually stay by their husbands. I am not an Orthodox but I used to baby sit for two orthodox families for a long time and got very friendly with them. All kind of people attend their funerals and shivas and what not.

Those people made their own rules to exclude others arbitrarily. As a Jew I feel personally ashamed they acted like this. But there are jerks in all walks of life.

Families could be so difficult when don’t need to be

Well, I am so very surprised to hear about all this, but I am also glad it came out and got cleared up. After all, at the time of my mother-in-law's funeral I had been married for over ten years. At the time of my father-in-law's funeral I had been married for over 20 years, but I simply didn't attend because I felt because I was not Jewish I was automatically excluded. Obviously my ex knew nothing about his own religion because he seemed as perplexed as me.

So basically, for all these years, I had a mistaken belief.

As for why those in-laws excluded me...who knows their reasoning? It wasn't anything personal, I'm certain, it had to do with their orthodoxy. They went kind of off the deep end with being orthodox and I think everyone in that family was perplexed. I think it was mainly the wife's doing.

You know...in the end it doesn't really matter. I had a great relationship with my mother-in-law and father-in-law and was very fond of them. All I remember are all the good memories when they were alive.

How we live is how we will be remembered...and the funeral is not something in our control.



PS Being in a so-called mixed marriage can be a challenge. My ex and I had to put up with a lot of ignorance from family members. So we were kind of used to it. To us it seemed like the height of ignorance. The first year we were married we joined Peace Corps and went around the world and lived on a remote Pacific island. We learned a lot from Peace Corps about tolerance and acceptance.

Worship. Not workshop. Autocorrect ugh

I actually thought non-Jews were not allowed to sit shiva.

Yeah we can’t control other people. But some stuff people do is just infuriating.

They can. They aren’t required. They just wouldn’t sit 7 days straight like Orthodox Jews would. But of course they can attend. Especially the day of the funeral. If it’s in the house they shouldn’t bring some pork chops with them lol but they could absolutely come and pay respect. Most certainly they are to attend funeral. Anyone can.

In my 54 years of life and living in two continents and being immersed in different cultures including dealing with interfaith marriages and different denominations of Judaism I’ve never heard of a family excluding someone from a funeral and shiva of their own mother in law regardless of faith. Never. Never happens.

These are some hateful folks. Well they don’t want to be at your wedding. So that’s something. I hate them because they lie about my people’s tradition to arbitrarily exclude someone. Makes us look bad.

Haha, well my ex ate pork chops and bacon and I made fun of him for it.

Maybe, giving her the benefit of the doubt, the wife who called the shots about saying you couldn’t come to the funeral, honestly mistakenly believed that was the case.

Could be. Still rude. I’d think someone would say something. Probably just ignorance. Two funerals ten years apart and they wouldn’t look up or ask someone that they can’t exclude brother’s wife from funerals.

People already have all kind of uneducated ideas about Jews and Jewish customs. I’d not want people to think that Jews have these kind of customs about excluding close family. We have enough nonsense believed about us

Well, if I felt very generous I would say maybe as they were new to the whole thing and neither of their families were religious. So...maybe...it is possible. However, wouldn't the rabbi have advised them???

Maybe they never asked the rabbi and just assumed? Never underestimate how clueless people are capable of being.

I agree. And it can happen with any religion.At the moment I am dealing with another one of my brothers who has become overtly (rather crazily) religious in our family-of-origin religion. Also, he's making things up. So I would say, yes, he is kind of an embarrassment for the rest of us. He is putting forth stuff that isn't really part of the religion. So yes, this does happen. I haven't confronted him because it won't change him.


If I was still married I guess I would have found out what was going on about the funerals. I did see my ex's brother and sister-in-law at my son's graduation and they were very cordial towards me. So I really don't think it was personal. I never felt anything personally negative from them.

Yes. As well, my mother-in-law died suddenly after a short but severe illness. She refused treatment that would have prolonged her distress. So everyone was pretty traumatized. We can't forget that. I know that my ex was extremely distressed. So if her children were in charge of things...maybe they could have messed up on some things? I can forgive them.


When my Mom died it was after a very long illness. Everyone had a chance to say goodbye. Everyone was sad at her funeral but most everyone was very calm. I helped my Dad with all the funeral details even though I was the youngest child. I tend to be calm in a crisis.


So I think what happens leading up to one's death probably carries over into the funeral. Just a thought.

I don't want a funeral. I want my son to scatter my ashes at a favorite lake. That's it.

I am going to make arrangements for a trusted person to turn my Facebook account into a Memorial Account. (You have to designate someone in your Facebook settings.) After a certain amount of time this same person will delete the account altogether. (You have to designate someone else on Facebook beforehand, as well.)

I hate it that my sister's Facebook account is still up five years after her death. I wish my niece had at least turned it into a memorial account.

And, of course, my brother has been informed NOT to send out a group text about me!


I am also going to leave instructions with my son to delete all my online accounts. I have everything written down, with all my passwords. For some reasons I hate the thought of all these accounts going on forever. It sort of creeps me out.

Sometimes it’s hard for people to even think about their own mortality.

My in-laws passed recently, nearly 100 y/o. They had pre-planned and paid for everything. We used to joke that they laid down in their caskets to try them out. It was nice for us as we didn’t have to deal with anything. But no one aside from our immediate family were there. None of their friends were still alive. A few of our friends came, which was nice at least giving us a small group.

I joke that I don’t care where I’m buried because my kids won’t even visit me while I’m alive.

I asked my 23 y/o son what he thought about getting notified about a death of someone he’s close to by text, and he thought that was the normal way and said none of his peers will even answer phone calls. They only want texts! I repeated, “Would you want to learn by text that your parent was dead?” And he reconsidered and agreed that a call would be better, maybe... So that’s how kids think.