MEMORIALIZING CHRISTIAN RELATIVES Walter Jacob

QUESTION: A Christian woman, converted to Judaism and married to a Jew , arranged for her parents and other(Gentile) relatives to be memorialized in the Qaddish list of the congregation which is read annually. She died, and her Jewish -born husband has since remarried. Now he wants the names of the Gentile relatives of his late wife removed from the Qaddish list. He and his late wife had children, so these names are the names of the grandparents and other relatives of the man’s children.(Rabbi P. Irving Bloom, Mobile , Alabama .)*

ANSWER: There are a number of questions involved in this inquiry. First, is it proper to have the names of Christians on the regular memorial list for annual Qaddish? Second, has the husband- now that he has married again- any justification for wanting to remove these names? In other words, may his second wife have grounds for objecting that her husband is still memorializing the relations of

his first wife? Third, since a contribution was made to the congregation for putting these names on the annual Qaddish list, is it now possible to rescind and cancel such a contribution and so remove the names?

First, as to saying Qaddish for Gentiles, and also as to bi congregation keeping on the Qaddish list a Gentile relative of a convert, this question was discussed fully in the Conference Yearbook. vol. LXVIL, 1957. One might imagine that there 1s 11° religious bond between a daughter and her Gentile father, since a convert is a"new-born child." However, Maimonides in Hilkhot Mamrim, V. 11, says(based upon the Talmud ), that a Spent should honor his Gentile father. Rabbi Aaron Walkin, mn responsum written in 1933, states that honoring his Eo his saying Qaddish for him. Since a son may say Qa i on Jewish -born apostate father(who had wilfully deserted Ju:

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