Community News
Seattle tahara facility fire
As reported by King 5 on June 23, 2026:
SEATTLE — An early morning fire destroyed a traditional burial facility on the campus of Seattle's oldest synagogue, disrupting a crucial service relied upon by Jewish families in three states across the Pacific Northwest.
The fire broke out around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday at the campus of Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath, known as BCMH Seattle, in the Seward Park neighborhood. Firefighters spent roughly two and a half hours battling the blaze. The damaged building housed the Mel Wolf Memorial Tahara Facility and Seattle Jewish Chapel, where volunteers and funeral workers perform tahara, the ritual washing and preparation of a body before burial, according to Jewish tradition. BCMH says the facility serves Jewish families throughout the Seattle area and beyond.
"Right now, that's on pause," BCMH president Yousef Shulman told KING 5. "We're unable to help anybody."
The loss leaves community leaders searching for alternatives while they assess the damage and determine how to continue serving families who experience a death in the coming days and weeks.
The synagogue itself has deep roots in Seattle history. BCMH traces its origins to 1891, making it Seattle's oldest synagogue and one of the oldest Jewish institutions in Washington state. The congregation moved to Seward Park in the 1960s, merged with Congregation Machzikay Hadath in 1971 and opened its current synagogue building in 1972. Today, it is one of the region's largest Ashkenazic Orthodox congregations.
In addition to operating the synagogue, BCMH maintains the Seattle Mikvah, Jewish cemeteries and the Seattle Jewish Chapel funeral home. The tahara facility destroyed in the fire was central to fostering the Jewish community in Seattle and beyond, explained former synagogue president Ari Hoffman.
"The synagogue was founded as a burial institution when the Jews came out here in the late 1800s," Hoffman said. "This has been why this community was actually founded. It was for Jews coming west, even all the way up to Alaska. They needed somebody to prepare the bodies ritually for burial, according to Jewish tradition."
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. For now, community leaders say their focus is on restoring a service they describe as essential to Jewish families during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
"We're unable to help anybody," Shulman said. "We're unable to do anything."
To support the fundraising effort to rebuild, click HERE.
LGBTQ+ Belonging in Chevra Kadisha Communities
Sunday, July 26th, 2026 4:00 p.m. Pacific on zoom
Kavod v’Nichum is grateful to partner with Keshet for a free community training led by Rabbi Lonnie Kleinman, designed especially for Chevra Kadisha volunteers, leaders, and community members. Chevra Kadisha work is rooted in kavod, dignity, and sacred care. This training will help participants build shared language, deepen understanding, and strengthen practices that support LGBTQ+ equality and belonging within Chevra Kadisha communities. Together, we will explore core terms and concepts related to LGBTQ+ identities, make connections between LGBTQ+ belonging and Jewish values, and consider what it means to create explicitly affirming communities at the end of life and in times of grief.
Here is a link to other Kavod v’Nichum learning events
Back to the Garden: Jewish Burial & Cemetery as Sacred
With Devorah Brous and HollyBlue Hawkins
August 19, 2026, 5:00pm Pacific, for 90 minutes
There is no fee, but your donations help us pay our speakers.
The Hebrew word, Gan (Garden) is often in the name of a cemetery, like Gan Shalom. Our burial grounds are considered kadisha, sacred spaces set apart to care for the remains of our dead. Since death has no regard for social status, no amount of privilege can stop it. And when a beloved dies, grief visits each of us in our own unique way. Jewish tradition requires that we spend time in communal mourning. When grieving "takes us back to The Garden" we can become Grief Gardeners, supporting one another in bringing back life after a death. Please join us as we explore Grief Gardening together.
Learn more about volunteering with VCK HERE
Devorah Brous (she/her), is the founder of FromSoil2Soul, a regenerative healing practice. A traumatic grief counselor, herbalist, and ritualist, she offers trauma-informed 1:1 sessions, and communal Grief Gardens (twice weekly) where she guides people moving through rupture with fierce tenderness. She designs immersive collective healing rituals and plant-spirit journeys. A TEDx speaker, and two-time nonprofit founder, she holds two master’s degrees and is currently completing a book on Jewish Grief Tending that weaves ancient and emergent practices.
Holly Blue Hawkins is a Natural Deathcare advocate, educator, community organizer, cemeterian, author and poet. In 2022 she co-created and launched two twelve-module courses on the subject of Natural Burial: in partnership with Lee Webster The Green Burial Master Class; and with David Zinner Jewish And Green: Cemetery Management For The 21st Century. As Gamliel Institute graduate and past faculty, Final Passages graduate, member of the Conservation Burial Alliance, Rosha Chevrah Kadisha (Head of Jewish Burial Society), past member of the Board of Trustees of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of California and independent consultant; with over 40 years of experience in end-of-life subjects, Holly Blue provides education and training to both Jewish and secular audiences.
Here is a link to other JADE learning events
Let’s Talk: Insights from a Palliative Care Doctor
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 , 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific
What is palliative care, and how does it differ from hospice? How might understanding it change the way we approach end-of-life decisions — and where does Jewish wisdom fit in?
Join us as we build the knowledge and confidence to face end-of-life planning with greater clarity and less fear. Shomer Collective's Rabbi Melanie Levav will be in conversation with Dr. Michael Pottash, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, whose teaching and research bridges serious illness, end-of-life communication, and medical ethics.
Let's Talk is Shomer Collective's ongoing conversation series, where Rabbi Melanie Levav brings Jewish wisdom into honest dialogue with experts, practitioners, and lived-experience voices on death, dying, and the questions that matter most.
Speakers:
Dr. Michael Pottash is a clinician educator focused on pain & palliative medicine and clinical ethics. His teaching, writing, and research has focused on the nature of suffering, serious illness communication, and the ethics of research with human subjects. He holds the appointment of professor of clinical medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine where he has taught medical humanities and served as chair of the Georgetown University IRB and vice chair of the Ethics Committee at the John J Lynch Center for Ethics.
Rabbi Melanie Levav serves as executive director of Shomer Collective, devoted to helping more people talk about death Jewishly. She pivoted her career toward end of life after seeing too many families end up in crisis because we don’t talk about or plan sufficiently for death and dying. A second-career rabbi, Melanie was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary; she is a board-certified chaplain, licensed social worker, credentialed death doula, and certified grief coach.