In the Jewish section of the large municipal cemetery in Moscow, numerous tombstones are engraved with an insignia indicating that the deceased was an honored member of the Communist party. What motivated individuals so entrenched in this political/national ideology to desire to be buried among religious brethren? Amanik, in his excellent history of Jewish death and burial in New York from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, raises the same question when he asserts, “Despite…pivotal changes, one stark continuity…remained…: Jewish commitment to be separate in death.” To some degree, this circumstance is even more curious on American soil, where no clear record of excluding Jews from public burial exists. Indeed, this “drive to separate” stands in contrast to the exceptional degree to which Jews focused successfully on becoming key partners in forming New York's multicultural mosaic.
Amanik is a meticulous social historian adept at featuring individuals or events that illustrate...