Question by CecyPdeL: Can Russian Jewish people get tattoos and still get buried on Jewish burial grounds?
Hi,
I hope no one gets offended by my question. I’m just very curious about religion and culture.
I was under the impression Jewish people were not allowed to get tattoos because if they did they would not be buried on Jewish grounds.
Am I right? If so, is it the same for Russian Jewish?
I know of someone famous who is very into his religion but is also very tattooed.
What would happen to his body if he died?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Ami
That’s actually nonsense. Jews with tattoos can be buried in Jewish cemeteries. The victims of the Shoah were forced to have their concentration camp numbers tattooed on their bodies, and it would be morally repulsive to refuse them burial.
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
Yeremiahu Yonteff says
Even people who have tatoos done intentionally with knowledge that it is wrong can find a "jewish" place to bury them. Are you going to get the cemetary or plot of whatever you want? Probably not, but if you intentionally got tatooed knowing it was wrong being buried in the tomb of the patriarchs (tounge and cheek of course) probably isn't that important to you in the first place.
People who are forced to trangress without a thing they can do about it, or who trangress any but the 3 worst sins in judaism in order to save thier life recieve no punishment according to jewish law. Also commiting sins out of ignorance, especially coming from the sort of persecution the russian jews faced is also a far less severe matter than people trangressing willfully, or because of ignorance that comes from laziness or disintrest in torah study.
So it kind of depends on whether the russian jew had the tatoos while living in soviet russia, and was predictibally ignorant of jewish law as a result or not.
However teshuva (repentance) is always possible regardless, and the funny thing is most legitimate rabbis consider tatoo removal to be the same trangression as getting the tatoo in the first place, there are new technologies in removal but last i heard there had been no real halachic analysis of these methods. So a repentant jew (that actually becomes fully observant) will in most cases be advised to keep the tatoo rather that get surgery to remove it.
Converts who have tatoos prior to going to the mikvah are generally told they can have the tatoo removed before converting since niether the tatoo nor the removal are a sin for gentiles and they obviously are not obliged to keep torah until after the mikvah.
Im certain is a Baal Teshuva with a tatoo wished to be buried in a prestigious cemetary he would have no problem aranging it ahead of time.
Its important to realise that as a rule of thumb heretics and apostates are not given burials in prominant cemetaries, and the time the attitude about tatoos came from was a time when tatoos were generally rare, and a part of pagan practices and it was reasonable to assume a jew that was found to have a tatoo on his body was one or the other.
sylvia c says
no of course not the people of Israel are not heartless did they have a choice when they were tattooed with a number in concentration camps. It is the innerself which is renewed each day, so we are given a new body in the resurrection, which is not corrupt. It is planted in corruption it is raised uncorruptible. Like a seed when planted will shed its skin and grow into a tree or a beautiful flower. One must die before the new can take place.