Q. (I have a relative who is dying. Unfortunately, he is married to a gentile…) If he does die without making this stipulation, do we let him get buried in a gentile cemetery? Should we make efforts to bury him in a Jewish cemetery or exhume his body for such burial after the fact, despite his wishes?
A. Poiskim deal with the proper burial of someone married to a Gentile. Chasam Sofer (Y.D. 341) rules that even when no shiva and mourning is observed, as is the case with the ones who consciously abandoned the Jewish community, still burial in a Jewish cemetery is required. This we perceive from the fact that the sentenced to death, which included idolaters, murderess and inhabitants of the Ir Hanidachas, were all buried in discrete sections of a Jewish cemetery. (Sanhedrin 47a) See also Lev Aryeh (32) for a similar ruling.
When someone who intermarried with Gentiles was buried in a non-Jewish graveyard Poskim permit his transfer to a designated area in a Jewish cemetery. Some advise to wait twelve months. Chaim Vechesed 6: 19 – 23)
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit"a opinion is similar and efforts should be made to bury him in a Kever Yisroel, albeit in the established designated section.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
Important Numbers
