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An Arizona cemetery now requires mourners to leave before burial. A rabbi plans to sue.
At Jewish funerals, the final act is often the simplest: the casket is lowered into the earth, mourners take turns with a shovel, and the grave slowly fills. It is a moment many rabbis describe as the essence of burial — the point at which ritual, grief and physical reality meet.
At a cemetery in Scottsdale, Arizona, that moment now does not happen.
A new safety policy at Paradise Memorial Gardens requires families to leave before a casket is lowered into the ground. Cemetery officials say the rule, which applies to all funerals, is necessary to prevent accidents, likely involving uneven ground, heavy equipment and mourners overcome with grief. But Jewish clergy say the policy interferes with a core religious ritual, and one local rabbi is preparing a lawsuit.
For Cindy Carpenter, 66, the dispute became painfully personal.
Her younger daughter, Chelsea, died at 33 of cancer in November. As Carpenter arranged the funeral, she and her husband purchased five burial plots at Paradise — for their two daughters, themselves and Chelsea’s husband — expecting the family would be buried together and according to Jewish practice. In total, the plots cost about $50,000, Carpenter said.
Eleven weeks later, Carpenter returned to the same cemetery to bury her older daughter, Cortney, who had significant disabilities and died at 40 after a long illness. Between the first funeral and the second, Carpenter said, the cemetery moved from compromise to refusal.
At Chelsea’s funeral, after intervention from local rabbis, mourners say they were allowed to stay but were placed around 20 feet away behind a rope while the casket was lowered. It was an imperfect accommodation Carpenter said she accepted. She understood the attempt to balance safety and tradition.
When Cortney died at the end of January, Carpenter said, that accommodation was gone. The standardized printed contract for the graveside service had added to it an additional handwritten note at the bottom stating that the casket would not be lowered until the “family has departed.” Carpenter said she was told that they had to leave the property altogether and that her request to stay inside a building at the cemetery and watch from a window was denied. Carpenter and her husband, Jim, signed under protest because the funeral was the next day.
Cindy added her own handwritten note: “I object to this awful policy,” while Jim wrote: “I acknowledge your policy & strongly object to the policy.”
“We’re grieving parents for the second time in 11 weeks,” Carpenter said in an interview. “And you’re telling me I can’t stay to see my daughter buried?”
Rabbi Pinchas Allouche of Scottsdale’s Congregation Beth Tefillah, who officiated at the funerals for both of Carpenter’s daughters, confirmed that everyone who came for Cortney’s funeral was told they could not wait in their cars and had to leave the property. “It was horrible,” Allouche said.
Afterwards, Allouche sent his 24-year-old son back into the cemetery — dressed in a baseball cap and sunglasses — to pretend to be a random person visiting a nearby grave. “From there,” Allouche said, his son “took a video of the lowering of the casket and the covering of the grave for the family to have some slice of comfort in all this.”
Cemetery officials say the rule is not aimed at any one faith. Sabrina Messinger-Acevedo, CEO and owner of Messinger Mortuaries, which operates Paradise Memorial Gardens, said the cemetery is non-denominational and that its safety policies are applied uniformly. She acknowledged the new policy does “not fully align with certain religious traditions,” but said it was adopted after past incidents in which attendees failed to follow staff directions, creating safety concerns.
Messinger Mortuaries operates multiple funeral homes, cemeteries and crematories across Arizona, including Paradise Memorial Gardens, which has a large Jewish section.
Cortney’s funeral was Feb. 3, but the dispute did not gain attention until it was reported by the local news on Feb. 16. Carpenter said the delay was due to the non-stop coverage of the Tucson disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.
Eddie Dressler, a funeral director who has served Atlanta’s Jewish community since the 1990s, said he has never encountered a cemetery policy requiring families to leave before the lowering of a casket. “Having a rule like that is just crazy,” Dressler said.
The only similar restrictions he has seen are at some U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs cemeteries, which open multiple graves at once for logistical reasons — but even there, he said, exceptions are typically made for Jewish burial practices.
Safety and spirituality
Allouche said the rule removes what Jewish law considers the defining moment of burial. The lowering of the casket and the covering of the grave, he said, are not symbolic gestures but the final act of care for the dead — one traditionally performed with mourners present and often participating.
Allouche said he is working with an attorney and expects to challenge the policy, arguing that families who purchased plots in the cemetery did so with the expectation they would be able to bury loved ones according to Jewish practice. Applying the rule without exception, he said, effectively prevents that.
Rabbi Randy Brown, the resident rabbi at Arlington National Cemetery who has officiated at more than 900 funerals there, said safety concerns at gravesides are real. He has personally helped prevent people from falling in “dozens of times.”
But Brown said most cemeteries do not impose blanket bans. Instead, clergy, funeral directors and grounds crews typically coordinate accommodations, such as keeping families at a distance during the lowering and allowing them to return afterward to place earth on the grave, a practice that preserves both safety and ritual meaning.
Graveside funerals, he said, function both as sacred ritual and, with bulldozer equipment nearby, active work sites. Arlington, he added, approaches each burial individually — considering weather, terrain and family needs — rather than applying a single policy to every service.
Brown described the moment when earth strikes the casket as emotionally powerful for many mourners, recalling his own experience at his grandmother’s funeral as “visceral and cosmic.” That meaning, he said, is why cemeteries and clergy typically seek practical compromises. “It’s not one size fits all,” he said.
Religious disputes have surfaced elsewhere. In Atlanta in 2023, for example, a synagogue threatened to sue after a cemetery policy was seen by rabbis as interfering with Jewish burial customs. The cemetery eventually settled.
Allouche said he expects legal action to move forward. Some families who own plots at the cemetery have begun reconsidering their plans, he said, while others are waiting to see whether the cemetery revises its rules or reaches a compromise with community leaders.
Messinger-Acevedo said her company — founded in 1959 by her grandparents, Paul and Cora Messinger — has “deep roots in the community” and a commitment to serve families with “care and compassion.” She said they offer “partial refunds to families who choose to rescind the purchase of an unused burial space” — a complex decision for those with relatives already buried at the cemetery.
Carpenter said the dispute is not something she wanted to fight, but one she felt compelled to pursue. Nearly two decades ago, she founded Cortney’s Place, a day program for adults with disabilities created in her older daughter’s honor, and is now working with local clergy to create “Shabbat boxes” for Jewish patients in hospitals — small packages with challah, candles and grape juice inspired by Chelsea.
“I fought for them all of their life,” Carpenter said. “And this is no different.”
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Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily
(JTA) — Delaware incumbent Sen. Chris Coons, a longtime supporter of Israel, is expected to easily win Delaware’s U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, despite criticism from party progressives.
Coons, a mainstay of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly backed measures to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. He also joined a bipartisan delegation to visit Israel immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
But the senator has faced pushback in recent months for his refusal to back measures that would cut military aid to Israel.
This past spring, he was one of just seven Democrats to join Republicans in voting against a resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons was among just 11 Democrats who opposed a second Sanders resolution that proposed similar sales bans on massive bombs and other defense equipment.
Coons has served nearly three terms in the Senate. He won a special election in 2010, about a year after Joe Biden resigned to become U.S. vice president, and then went on to secure two full terms in 2014 and 2020.
In Tuesday’s primary, he will face off against artificial intelligence systems builder and historian Jeff Appelhans, naval architect and marine engineer Mary Louve and a former business executive who changed his legal name from Eric Hansen to E. No-Trump Hansen.
While Coons has earned endorsements from establishment Democrats, such as Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Gov. Matt Meyer, he has drawn criticism from party progressives for both his support of Israel and the financial backing he gets from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Of Coons’s opponents, the most vocal critic on Israel-related policy has been Appelhans, whose campaign priorities included ending U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Appelhans slammed Coons for voting against the Sanders bills, writing on his campaign site that “the liberal consensus moved to block the sales.”
Appelhans condemned Coons’s voting record on “moving armaments to Israel,” noting in a recent interview that “there’s never been a vote that he’s stopped” on this issue. He was speaking with Delaware Public Media last week as part of a series of candidate interviews.
Regarding the conflict in Iran, Appelhans slammed “Congress’ unwillingness” to challenge the president, noting that “there was very much a sense that Israel would be a staunch ally and they could sort of get this done really easily.”
In the same radio series, another candidate, Louve, expressed uncertainty as to “why we’re still backing Israel,” while acknowledging the country’s history as a U.S. ally.
“Is it worth us continuing to step up for a bully?” she asked. “It’s aggression that is unnecessary that’s continuing to escalate because we’re helping it.”
Hansen did not participate in these conversations, Delaware Public Media stated.
This summer Coons pledged to stop taking donations from the data company Palantir, which has come under scrutiny for its work with the Israel’s Defense Ministry, the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the nonprofit news site Spotlight Delaware.
Despite his more centrist reputation, Coons has had significant criticism for the Trump administration’s strategies in Iran. In his own Delaware Public Media interview, Coons accused the president of selling the conflict “as a cheap, quick war.”
While little polling data was available ahead of Tuesday’s race, the Polymarket predictions site gave Coons a 99.7% chance of winning as of Monday evening. In his last primary in 2020, Coons defeated a progressive opponent, Jessica Scarane, with nearly 73% of voter support.
Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, the victor is expected to easily defeat the Republican challenger in the November general election, with the Cook Political Report deeming Delaware “solid” Democratic territory.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Noah Wyle wins an Emmy for playing one of TV’s most Jewish doctors
(JTA) — Noah Wyle on Monday night won his second consecutive Emmy for playing Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on “The Pitt.” The win also marked a second victory for one of television’s more fully realized Jewish characters.
The actor won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the HBO Max medical drama, which also won Outstanding Drama Series for the second year in a row. In his acceptance speech, Wyle recalled growing up in Los Angeles and said, “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and this is the only club I’ve ever wanted to join.”
For Jewish viewers, the significance of Wyle’s victory goes beyond the actor’s own Jewish ancestry. In the first season, Robby was seen reciting the Shema at one of his lowest moments, turning what might have been a throwaway piece of character background into an intimate expression of fear and faith.
In the second season, Wyle, who is also a writer and executive producer on the show, pushed that dimension further. An episode he wrote dealt with the trauma of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, while also exploring Robby’s complicated relationship with his Jewish faith.
Wyle has described Robby’s faith as something he is still “grappling” with — including the question of whether he has faith at all. The Shema scene, he said, functioned almost like a child’s primal plea for help.
Wyle was not the only Jewish winner of the night. Saul Metzstein, the Scottish Jewish director whose father was the prominent modernist architect Isi Metzstein, won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for “Slow Horses.” Metzstein had been competing against Wyle, who was nominated for directing an episode of “The Pitt.”
Those two wins were among the relatively few Jewish victories at this year’s ceremony. Jewish actors including Jason Segel, Lisa Kudrow, Harrison Ford and Hannah Einbinder were among the nominees but did not win in their categories.
“Nobody Wants This,” the Netflix show about a rabbi’s romance with a non-Jewish podcaster, was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series but lost to “Widow’s Bay.”
An Emmy was also awarded to a Jewish actor and director whose death in 2025 stunned the industry and a legion of fans. Rob Reiner, who was killed in December with his wife, Michele, won a posthumous Emmy for his guest role as a kind dispenser of business advice on “The Bear.” Reiner’s award was presented at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month, rather than Monday’s televised ceremony.
Reiner, before going on to direct Hollywood classics like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” won his first two Emmy awards in 1974 and 1978 for playing Mike Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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NAZA exposes Israel’s crisis of credibility over Gaza
More than two decades ago, when I was the The Associated Press bureau chief for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli military called off an attack on a senior Hamas leader after learning at the last moment that family members and children were inside the targeted building.
What stayed with me was what happened next. The military sent a senior officer to my office to explain the decision.
This was during the Second Intifada, the murderous explosion of terrorism launched by armed Palestinians after Israel had offered the Palestinian Authority an independent state in over 90 percent of the territory it sought. Hamas leaders sent suicide bombers into Israel on a daily basis to blow up buses, restaurants, malls, cafes. I checked for explosives whenever I got into my car, perhaps with my little daughters, Maya and Noa.
Yet Israeli officials understood that demonstrating concern for civilian life was part of maintaining the country’s credibility. Maybe they also thought that concern for innocent life, even on the enemy side, was the Jewish thing to do. I want to believe this, as both a Jew and as a manager who had colleagues in Gaza, some of whom were hurt over the years.
That memory returned to me amid the uproar surrounding NAZA, the new documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who shared in the 2024 Oscar for No Other Land, a critique of Israel’s practices in the West Bank.
The new film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize, is titled after the Hebrew acronym for “collateral damage” (and is also a play on “Gaza”). It examines Israel’s targeting practices in Gaza through testimony from 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel who allege the IDF used artificial intelligence.
Some of those soldiers, the filmmakers say, operated or helped design the AI systems at the center of the film. Their identities are concealed in various ways, yet their testimony portrays a disturbing picture about how technology, intelligence and estimates of civilian casualties intersected in decisions to strike.
The reaction in Israel has been ferocious. Culture Minister Miki Zohar – from the governing Likud Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu – has called the filmmakers traitors and raised the prospect of revoking their citizenship.
Former football star and prominent television personality Eyal Berkovic has similarly argued that loss of citizenship should be the best-case scenario for Israelis who harm their country. As the film moves beyond Venice, efforts to prevent its screening in Israel seem likely.
That reaction creates a sad irony. One of the strongest criticisms of NAZA is that its highly combustible testimony comes from anonymous sources – and that is a valid criticism indeed. Yet threats directed at the filmmakers offer a fairly vivid illustration of why soldiers and intelligence officers making explosive allegations about their own military might fear speaking publicly. The filmmakers say anonymity was necessary to protect people who could face serious consequences for revealing classified information. I can credibly assess they’d end up in jail.
Nonetheless, the anonymity remains a serious weakness. Claims that are this grave demand intense scrutiny, and viewers have limited means of establishing whether the witnesses held the positions they claim, possessed the knowledge they describe or represent the targeting system accurately. The IDF has challenged precisely this aspect of the film and rejected its portrayal of Israeli targeting practices.
That said, and not for the first time, the military is more reasonable than the government and the IDF’s spokesman invited the filmmakers to screen it for the military. A detailed military response to the evidence presented in NAZA would provide an essential counterweight.
The central dispute also reaches beyond whether Israel used artificial intelligence. The IDF says decisions to select and approve strikes are made by human personnel. The more consequential question is what information those people received and what weight they gave to civilian lives when making those decisions. If a system identified a Hamas operative inside a residential building, what level of civilian harm was considered acceptable in order to kill him? To what degree was AI part of the decision-making process?
Amid a global uproar over fears of AI, and in particular systems operating independently in ways that harm humans, this film catapults such questions to a very high place in the global discourse.
The AI questions lead to others. Did the permissible number of civilian casualties change according to the importance of the target? How confident did intelligence officers have to be that the intended person was actually present? What happened when information indicated that children or other family members were inside? How frequently did commanders cancel strikes because the expected civilian toll had become too high?
NAZA offers disturbing answers, and its central concern is ultimately a human one: what values and tolerances were built into the targeting process, and how were they applied by the people responsible for approving strikes?
Israel, this time around, has provided only a limited public account of those calculations during the war. Officials have emphasized the extraordinary difficulties of fighting Hamas in densely populated Gaza, the organization’s use of civilian areas for military purposes and Israeli estimates of a civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio that they say compares favorably with other episodes of urban warfare, including Mosul. The precise civilian death toll in Gaza also remains contested, particularly the division between civilians and combatants.
There is no doubt in my mind – none whatsoever – that Hamas is the embodiment of evil. It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the jihadist group engineered the entire war to maximize casualties on its own side in order to make Israel an international pariah. But it is also rather obvious by Israel’s conduct in the war and the tens of thousands of civilians who have died, that Israel to walked into the trap laid by Hamas.
Aggregate ratios tell only part of the story. They reveal little about why a particular building was struck, how many civilians were expected to be inside, what military advantage commanders anticipated or how that anticipated advantage was weighed against the likely human cost. Repeated incidents involving substantial civilian casualties have often been followed by broad explanations rather than detailed accounts of the decision-making that produced them. Foreign journalists, of course, have not been freely allowed in.
That is where my memory from more than 20 years ago feels especially relevant. The military that sent an officer to my office understood the value of a transparent process. It understood that credibility depended partly on demonstrating, in specific cases, that civilian lives carried meaningful weight in operational decisions. During the Gaza war, amid extraordinary civilian loss of life, that instinct has been far less visible, to say the least.
Why did Israel act this way? Part of it has to do with the unspeakable trauma of the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion and massacre, which left Israelis in no mood for explanations, and placed its government in a defensive posture. Part of it is the nature of that government – an ultranationalist assemblage of highly illiberal and astoundingly cynical politicians. And part of it is the global demonization targeting Israel – so thorough and unfair that it almost explains the surrender of any serious effort at PR.
None of this was smart. The resulting information vacuum has given NAZA much of its power. A documentary built substantially around anonymous testimony carries an obvious credibility burden, particularly when its allegations concern classified practices that outsiders have little ability to examine independently. Yet Israel’s sparse public accounting of its targeting decisions has left relatively little detailed evidence against which those accounts can be measured. The filmmakers have supplied one version of what happened inside the targeting system; a detailed Israeli account could provide another.
Demonizing a couple of filmmakers based on the idea that they meant to do Israel harm will not convince intelligent people and will deepen Israel’s isolation. Israel needs to explain to its own people how it failed so utterly to protect the massacre of Jews. It needs to explain to the world what went on in Gaza. In fact, it needs to explain that to its own people as well.
All of that will await another government. This will not come from Netanyahu.
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