Orthodox burial for theformerBuddhist

LEONARD COHEN was buried in a traditional Jewish ceremony hours before his death was formally announced.

The legendary singer-songwriter, who died on Monday last week at his Los Angeles home, aged 82, was buried three days later in an Orthodox cemetery in Montreal — the city of his birth.

The funeral was conducted “exactly as he’d asked”, according to his son Adam who paid tribute to him on Facebook.

Adam Cohen, also a musician, revealed that the intimate service took place with just immediate family and “a few lifelong friends” in attendance.

He wrote: “He was lowered into the ground in an unadorned pine box, next to his mother and father.”

The burial took place on Thursday in a family plot associated with the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, an Orthodox synagogue to which Leonard Cohen had “a lifelong spiritual, musical, and familial connection”.

A statement from the community said: “Leonard’s wish was to be laid to rest in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents.” Hebrew lyrics from the title song from his latest album, were read during the service, according to French news agency AFP.

In his Facebook post, Adam Cohen said: “As I write this, I’m thinking of my father’s unique blend of self-deprecation and dignity, his approachable elegance, his charisma without audacity, his old-world gentlemanliness and the hand-forged tower of his work.”

He also thanked his father for “his music which seduced me as a boy, then for his encouragement of my own music, and finally for the privilege of being able to make music with him”.

Leonard Cohen, whose most famous songs include covered by other artists over 500 times,

and released his 14th album just last month.

Mourners laid flowers and lit candles at the doorstep of the musician’s Montreal home and tributes were also being paid on the Greek island of Hydra, where he had a home in the 1960s.

The singer is also survived by his daughter Lorca, a photographer and videographer.