DISTRESS OVER ‘UNEXPECTED BILL’

JANET GEE’S parents had moved to Bournemouth to be with their daughter and joined the local Reform community.

They had previously been members of Alyth in Golders Green, switching to West London Synagogue and then returning to the London suburbs to Edgware and District Reform Synagogue.

But despite having contributed to a burial society for more than 50 years, her mother found this did not meet the full cost of her husband’s funeral.

“She was distraught,” Mrs Gee said. “You’re in shock and suddenly you’ve got an unexpected bill. It was very upsetting.”

The problem was that, although all four communities they had belonged to were Reform, Alyth, Edgware and Bournemouth are part of the Jewish Joint Burial Society, whereas West London runs its own scheme.

So although her parents thought they were fully covered when they came to Bournemouth, their time at West London did not count and their JJBS cover effectively began only when they joined Edgware — when her father was beyond the age of automatically receiving full benefit.

Mrs Gee remains “angry” about the rigidity of burial schemes, given that her own parents’ experience of resettling to be near family is commonplace. An elderly couple might want to join the synagogue near their new home but feel compelled to retain membership in their previous place of residence because of burial rights and “are not able to pay two memberships. Burial rights should not be the determining factor of which synagogue you stay with.”

She wanted the different burial bodies to “get together and sort out a solution. I know I am not alone. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this.”

Three years ago, she and her husband switched from Bournemouth’s Reform community to the local Orthodox congregation, sacrificing their previous burial rights. They had to pay a burial joining fee and start again.