A WOMAN whose deceased husband was born into the Jewish faith has been refused a school to introduce a Star of David on his memorial inside a Church of England churchyard.
While people of any faith could also be buried in a Christian churchyard, provided they lived within the parish on the time of their death or had obtained permission from the incumbent, the PCC, or the court, the one symbol that was permitted in a Christian churchyard was a Christian symbol.
The right to burial of a parishioner shouldn’t be confused with an untrammelled right to any form of memorial or inscription on it. That supposed right didn’t exist, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Norwich ruled, when refusing to grant a school to allow a Star of David to be introduced on top of a memorial stone within the churchyard of St Mary’s, Shotesham.
The petition for a school was brought by Laura Wollacott, whose husband, Raz, died of motor-neurone disease (MND). He was born into the Jewish faith, but not brought up strictly inside it. The family, nonetheless, celebrated Jewish customs and traditions. A menorah had all the time been displayed in his home, and it had eventually been handed right down to him and held a special place and intending to his family.
He joined a kibbutz as a young man, and, for a time after he returned, he began attending synagogue, becoming a big figure who carried the scrolls. Subsequently, he became drawn to the Quaker faith and was a campaigner against nuclear armament, landmines, and other causes. But he retained his links to his Jewish identity, and his Jewish descent was well-known.
After considerable thought during his struggle with MND, he got here to the conclusion that he wished to have a Christian funeral service, and expressed views about how he wished it to be conducted. The funeral service was held at St Mary’s, Shotesham, and it fully celebrated his life and background.
The Chancellor, the Worshipful David Etherington, said that he appreciated the importance given to the Star of David and the interfaith emphasis that formed a part of the funeral. But the Chancellor said that, unfortunately, that didn’t mean that those of other faiths, or whose ancestry or culture involved other faiths, were in a position to display those symbols in a Christian churchyard.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all monotheistic religions worshipping one God, but their specific beliefs were different, the Chancellor said. A Christian cross on a headstone in a Jewish cemetery or the Jewish section of a cemetery, might well be viewed as improper, whatever its motivation.
The Jewish religion and Christianity were intimately connected, but they weren’t the identical religion, and so they had conflicting beliefs. The incontrovertible fact that the Star of David featured sometimes in churches and cathedrals, often in stained glass, was testament to that shared history, and a part of the telling of that story. A spiritual symbol on a tombstone was understood to be there to declare the deceased’s faith. Symbols for other purposes, religious or secular, weren’t ordinarily permitted in memorials.
The Chancellor also referred to a different case ([2017] ECC SEI 3) during which a Jewish RAF pilot, Harold Rosofsky, who was killed in September 1939 when his plane crashed attributable to mechanical failure, was buried in a churchyard, and a typical War Graves memorial was erected with an engraved cross. The confusion had occurred since the RAF pilot officer had been carrying a card identifying him as a Christian. That was since it had been intended that he should fly over Germany. The reason for having been given a Christian card to fly over Germany at the moment “doesn’t require explanation”, the Chancellor said.
In that case, a school was granted in March 2017 for the Christian cross to get replaced by a Star of David, owing to the very exceptional circumstances, including the incontrovertible fact that Rosofsky died within the service of this country. That case was “on any view highly exceptional”, the Chancellor said.
In the current case, there was no exceptional reason for departing from the traditional rules, and the college was refused. The Chancellor hoped that another way may very well be found, corresponding to an appropriate verse from the Old Testament, to convey the deceased’s Jewish descent and identity.
