Reveals how some members of liberal American Jewish communities transform their relationships to Jewishness and to each other through engaging in collective mourning rituals—even amid secularization

Today, great numbers of people are turning from traditional religious practices and beliefs of the past. Liberal Jews are among the vanguard of these irreligious and individualist trends. Yet, while many nonorthodox Jews have abandoned religious practices, their engagement with traditional mourning rites turns out to be particularly sticky.

In Judaism rituals around death are communal, and they therefore help to illuminate issues around collective identity. In Facing Death Together, C. Lynn Carr investigates how participants in some liberal Jewish communities engage with religious tradition following a death in the family, both as mourners and as comforters, including through the tradition of shiva and as chanters of the Mourner’s Kaddish. Focusing on current and former members of Jewish Reconstructionist communities, the book considers why, when, and how they engage with Jewish tradition, and what this religious involvement means for their relationships to their communities, to liberal American Jewishness, and to Judaism.

This story-rich ethnographic study weaves together sociological scholarship on religion, mourning, and emotion with knowledge gained from years of observant participation, intimate interviews, and qualitative survey responses. Moreover, it considers how liberal Jewish community members construct themselves as liberal Jewish persons. Discussing contemporary liberal religion and irreligion, death and grieving, belonging and estrangement, emotion and interaction, and engagement with and rejection of Jewish religious tradition, Facing Death Together describes how and why religious community holds transformative potential.