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The receipt issued by the Nosej Hamita and Menachem Awejlim Association in Tarnów was printed on a small white card, in Polish and Yiddish. It relates to the payment of 100 zlotys for preparing the corpse for burial and transporting it to the cemetery.

All burial-related activities were handled by the funeral brotherhood (Aramaic: chevra kadisha) operating in each Jewish community. Its task was to transport the corpse to the pre-burial house located in the Jewish cemetery and wash it before burial according to a specific ritual (Hebrew: tahara). First, the body was placed on a special table, with the feet toward the door, rubbed and washed with lukewarm water. The deceased's hair was cut and combed with a special comb. While doing so, members of the brotherhood recited passages from the Books of Deuteronomy, Zechariah and Ezekiel. After such careful preparation, the actual tahara ceremony took place: the body of the deceased was placed upright and poured with nine measures of water so that it ran down the entire body. The corpse was then wiped, covered with a shroud and moved to the bier. Only then were the funeral ceremonies begun: the deceased was escorted to the grave, the funeral speech was made and kaddish recited, after which the body was placed in the grave (usually in a wooden coffin) and buried. (See more: Jan Jagielski, chewra kadysza, w: PSJ, https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=14209; tenże, tahara, in: PSJ, https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=16374 [accessed on 1.09.2023]).

Karolina Fudyma