Test Your Knowledge About
Jewish Funeral Practices

The following set of True or False questions was developed by the Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington. This is one of many ways this organization assists synagogues in the Washington, D.C., area.

After submitting your quiz, you will receive your score along an explanation behind each answer.

1. As soon as I learn about the death of a loved one, I should call a funeral director.
   True False

2. Civil law requires embalming, especially if the body is to travel interstate before the funeral.
   True False

3. Jews must be buried within twenty-four hours of death.
   True False

4. The tradition of burying people in a plain pine box is based on superstitions about metal.
   True False

5. The traditional condolence greeting to a mourner is "May G-d comfort you together with the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem."
   True False

6. Jewish law prohibits organ donation.
   True False

7. The first meal eaten by mourners following a funeral must not be prepared by the mourners themselves.
   True False

8. Jews believe in life after death.
   True False

9. If, before dying, a person tells their family that they need not sit shiva or say kaddish for them, that request is honored.
   True False