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The use of the structured Jewish mourning rituals in aiding the bereaved
Abstract
This investigation explored through intensive case studies the coping progress of a group of Jewish individuals and also recorded the areas in which they simultaneously observed the Jewish religious mourning rituals. The in-depth interviews of fiver persons, three women and two men, and selections from two additional interviews have been recorded. Their losses included both parents and both spouses. They were invited by the researcher when reports of their losses appeared in the newspaper obituary columns. Each subject was personally interviewed three times to coincide with the three stages of the Jewish ritual practice. The questionnaires utilized to evaluate the subjects' grief and coping were based upon questions developed in three previous studies: (a) The study of the Attachment Theory and Multiple Dimensions of Grief by Selby C. Jacobs, et al. (1986) of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. (b) The Expanded Texas Inventory of Grief developed by Sidney Zisook, et al. (1982). (c) The Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. The questionnaires to determine the areas of the subjects' observance or non-observance, of the Jewish ritual system were developed by this researcher. The purpose of this study was to provide the two parallel records of grief coping and structured mourning procedure observance so that future researchers might have a basis for determining the influence of the latter on the former. An additional result is that in all cases the subjects themselves commented on what, if anything, observing the ritual meant to them. A further area of future study could, therefore, be to determine how one's own perception of the ritual one is observing determines the effect it has upon one's grief coping. In the Summary and Recommendations observations are made on the efficacy of the questionnaire instruments employed in the studies mentioned above. Suggestions for improving their usefulness are made.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Weisfogel, Bella K, "The use of the structured Jewish mourning rituals in aiding the bereaved" (1988). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8906350.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8906350