Dying to Get Back to New Jersey

             I’m seriously thinking about being cremated. Preferably after I die. It’s not a decision I’ve made hastily. Having attended many funerals and formulated strong personal feelings about what happens after we’re gone, I think I have a cogent argument for my conviction to be turned into blithely weightless and oddly beautiful ashes. But cogent or not, there is a dilemma attached to it: the Koslowitz Family Foundation thinks they are in charge of my body’s ultimate fate, and I’m not happy about shaking the foundation down to its very, well, foundation. I still have some affection for that ragtag band of schlemiels.

One of the chief functions of the Koslowitz Family Foundation, as it was for many such ethnically-based foundations throughout the last century (sometimes they were called ‘family circles’), is to make it easier on members whose loved ones pass away. The Koslowitz group has always had plots reserved for members at a Jewish cemetery in central New Jersey, and the foundation helps with the arrangements and the finances, which come from dues paid by all members. When I was a kid I was fascinated listening in on the meetings of the cemetery committee—the committee being just about everybody who attended. They were loud and blustery. You’d think they were discussing Chris Christie (speaking of loud, blustery—and New Jersey). But frankly, it was one function in which I had no interest whatsoever. Not then, not now. I simply spend too many hours chasing dreams to worry about the business of death. In fact, I think that's what really turns me off--that it’s because it is such a business.

The Koslowitz Family Circle has been around for more than 80 years. I happen to be the grandson of one of the founding members, son of a former president, and brother-in-law of a recent cemetery chairman. Speaking out against funerals and cemeteries, in a way, makes me the black sheep of the family circle. By itself, that’s not such a bad thing. I have to do something different for the sake of individuality. After all, I want to be a novelist, playwright and screenwriter but still hear “Joel who?” more than anyone should be allowed to hear it. So yes, I speak out about the funeral business. But speaking out puts a dent in a family foundation so fragile it can barely afford any dents at all. Some draw the conclusion that I believe there is no longer a need for the Koslowitz Family Foundation, and I must admit that the thought crosses my mind quite often. After all, it's 2014 and the extended families on which family circles were built no longer play the same roles they did a half century ago. Today, instead of extending four or five city blocks, families extend for miles, sometimes even states or continents. Also, the assimilation is complete; we no longer need family circles to help us get along in the new world. It’s not so new to us anymore.

Furthermore, today there are new challenges the founding members hadn’t counted on, as far as cemetery business is concerned. For instance, we have more members now whose spouses are not Jewish, and a few members who are gay, raising the indelicate question of where their husbands, wives or domestic partners should be allowed to rest for eternity. We even have a few members who do not readily embrace all the old traditions, like sitting Shiva, or going to unveilings. I suppose some of us in the third generation are simply more free thinking, more impatient to move on, more pressured for time. Even more irreverent. For instance, maybe I should distribute literature to all members on options other than conventional burials, such as cremation, cryogenics—or even about cemeteries not easily accessible by an exit off the New Jersey Turnpike.

Frankly, that’s what really bothered all these years—the fact that New Jersey was chosen as the final resting place for everyone in the family. Even if you were born in Poland, raised in Brooklyn and retired to Arizona, you still had to be buried in New Jersey! What’s with that? I always wondered what made the Garden State so special for the Koslowitz Family Foundation. I know it isn’t the soil, being so close to all those refineries. Nor does the weather offer any particular benefits. Traffic is awful. You can’t pump your own gas. And most members live elsewhere.

So why New Jersey?

Ironically, I relocated to New Jersey a while back because of a job opportunity and it was a lot easier for me to get to that chosen cemetery than it was for many of my relatives. (I’ve since relocated again, to Connecticut.) So in the recent past I haven't made a stink about going to that Central Jersey cemetery when I had to, because I care about my family and my heritage. But I still didn’t hide my disdain, nor do I today. There may be those who think my contempt makes me a bad Jew. I wholeheartedly disagree. A bad Koslowitz, perhaps, but never a bad Jew. God loves free thought, and debate, and new ideas. The funny thing is, I don’t even know anyone named Koslowitz. And if I did, they probably wouldn’t shlep out to New Jersey to visit me anyway.

At least not while I’m alive.