Via most of 56-year profession, Bart Bookatz led funeral dwelling as president, funeral director | Native Information

It was 5 p.m. in Israel when Pepper Pike resident Barnett “Bart” Bookatz’s phone rang within the midst of a bustling airport pickup space. A visit for his place on the time – common chair of Israel Bonds for Ohio – was simply starting, with a gathering rapidly approaching at 8 p.m., however Bookatz held one other place that at all times warranted a immediate reply to anybody who known as.

Bookatz, president and funeral director of Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel, greeted the caller with a heat and mild voice. With over 56 years within the funeral enterprise, he anticipated each name to be intertwined with grief.

Over the hum of vacationers, Bookatz listened to the caller, who was his good pal. The person’s spouse had died unexpectedly and there was a significant drawback: the spouse’s mom was on a mission journey in Israel with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, unable to be contacted by her son-in-law.

Though the Federation may make preparations to fly the mom dwelling, Bookatz knew this was the second daughter she had misplaced, and that he couldn’t enable her to journey such a good distance dwelling, alone in her grief.

“At her age, I wasn’t placing her on a aircraft by herself – dropping a second daughter, being a widower – on an 11-hour flight to New York to then look forward to a aircraft to Cleveland,” Bookatz, 76, instructed the Cleveland Jewish Information. “So I stated, ‘I’m going again along with her.’”

Inside three hours, Bookatz was flying again to Cleveland with the mom.

This was certainly one of many journeys and holidays he had reduce brief, with the intention to assist his neighborhood and supply the non-public, compassionate and dignified care that everybody who is aware of Bookatz commends him for.

Bookatz introduced his retirement earlier this 12 months, on Jan. 1, 2025.

He was born in Cleveland Heights to Phyllis and Jules Bookatz. Jules was a previous president of Temple on the Heights, now referred to as B’nai Jeshurun Congregation, and Phyllis was a previous president of the sisterhood on the Temple on the Heights, Bookatz and his three sisters had been raised in a conventional Jewish family, he stated.

Bookatz started his increased training at The Ohio State College in Columbus, and after his sophomore 12 months, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps for 2 years. He completed his training at Cleveland State College, incomes a bachelor’s diploma in philosophy and spiritual research.

Throughout his training at CSU, Bookatz discovered a job opening at Cleveland Temple Memorial, a Jewish funeral dwelling, by way of a pal of Leonard Labowitch, the proprietor and funeral director. The place entailed answering telephones at evening whereas dwelling above the funeral dwelling, which Bookatz recollects being good for his schedule, as he may work at evening and go to class in the course of the day.

“The gentleman who owned it stated he thought I might be good on this career,” Bookatz stated. “(Labowitch stated,) ‘why don’t you keep on after your commencement and work in direction of your diploma and funeral directing and stick with me.’ That’s the best way I obtained concerned.”

When requested why he had chosen this profession, Bookatz recollects the fascination he had of “doing one thing the conventional individual isn’t doing,” whereas being an apprentice of servicing households at Cleveland Temple Memorial. The individuality of the career was solely a small side of his alternative although.

“Having that feeling afterwards that you just truly helped somebody undergo one thing, and that, not many individuals are educated to do,” Bookatz stated. “It simply was a really rewarding factor and it additionally launched me to the neighborhood and obtained me concerned locally which I loved. We have now to do quite a lot of issues ourselves for ourselves, after I say ourselves I imply our neighborhood. I at all times obtained the gratitude out of that from doing one thing. I wasn’t searching for the glory.”

After his apprenticeship, Bookatz grew to become the funeral director at Cleveland Temple Memorial. As shut mates, the house owners of Berkowitz-Kumin Memorial Chapel in Cleveland Heights and Bookatz determined to merge the 2 funeral properties in 1977 to create Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel. Collectively, the buddies created a enterprise centered on personalised care that has made an enduring influence on the Jewish neighborhood in Cleveland.

Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel would go on to amass Miller-Deutsch Funeral Residence in 1985.

Bookatz stated he made certain to entwine conventional Jewish funeral beliefs and practices whereas catering to every grieving household’s wants. He retains a private philosophy for the career, stating it’s “80% service and 20% enterprise,” a philosophy that he handed right down to apprentices on the funeral dwelling, together with his son Bryon Bookatz.

“I’ve taught my apprentices, even my very own son, you sit with them, you discover out what their wants are,” Bookatz stated. “Everybody mourns in a different way, no two individuals mourn the identical. You clarify to them what the beliefs of the Jewish faith are. Among the practices are stunning however some could also be not what they want to do, however they need to at the least learn of them. Some would say, ‘Effectively, Mother by no means wished shiva, so we’re not doing it,’ and I might say, ‘however you’re the mourner.’”

All through his life, Bookatz stated he joined a number of synagogues to grasp completely different practices in every congregation with the intention to higher assist the households he works with. He additionally merely enjoys completely different companies at every synagogue, some being sermons, cantors or hazzans.

Park Synagogue in Pepper Pike, led by Rabbi Joshua Skoff, is one congregation the place Bookatz is a present trustee. When requested about his influence on the Jewish neighborhood in Cleveland, Skoff highlighted the non-public contact Bookatz carried out in every memorial.

“He’s in a really choose group of those that’ve actually saved the Jewish funeral second as being such an outreaching, heat, respectful and dignified a part of the Cleveland panorama,” Skoff instructed the CJN. “He has made a giant distinction and he’s preserved these lifelong traditions of the Jewish world, however he’s achieved it in a method that has humanized and personalised it for therefore many individuals.”

In terms of grief, Bookatz believes mourning can hold the reminiscences of a beloved one alive.

“You would possibly want your mates to come back over and categorical their sympathies to you, to listen to tales in regards to the individual you misplaced,” Bookatz stated. “So that you notice that the individual bodily could also be lifeless, however emotionally and mentally they nonetheless reside on and people reminiscences reside on. Funerals aren’t for the deceased, funerals are for the dwelling, to offer them that potential to mourn, to offer them that potential to grieve and to share their mates’ and their relations’ grief.”

In 1998, Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz joined the Dignity Memorial community of funeral and cemetery service suppliers.

Bookatz made certain to assist the neighborhood, even when the members weren’t grieving. All through his life, Bookatz grew to become deeply concerned within the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, particularly within the Federation’s safety efforts, referred to as JFC Safety, LLC.

“It begins with Bart’s reference to native police departments due to the funeral dwelling,” Stephen H. Hoffman, president emeritus of JFC Safety, LLC, instructed the CJN. “One of many key elements in our Jewish neighborhood is the cooperation we’ve from all the assorted police departments. Bart knew everyone and was capable of facilitate nice working relationships with these completely different departments.”

It was Hoffman who determined in 2013 that the JFC wanted a safety committee, and requested Bookatz to steer the trouble with Oren Baratz, Federation senior vice chairman of exterior affairs and overseer of JFC Safety LLC.

Bookatz and Baratz employed Jim Hartnett, a former FBI agent and director of JFC Safety LLC., in addition to Jeff Robertson, former Cleveland Heights police chief and deputy director of JFC Safety LLC. Collectively, the 4 males established JFC Safety LLC, which now consists of 60 full-time safety officers who’re devoted to offering safety and security to the Cleveland Jewish neighborhood.

“He was very passionate and dedicated to creating certain that we constructed a program that made individuals really feel snug, safe {and professional} and he embodied that as a result of he was entrance and middle, displaying up in any respect of our coaching classes,” Hartnett instructed the CJN when requested about Bookatz. “He would truly even volunteer to play the dangerous man after we did force-on-force coaching the place he truly obtained hit with wax projectiles when he was taking part in a hostage taker.”

Bookatz served as a chair of JFC Safety LLC. for eight years, in nonconsecutive two-year phrases.

“He was actually one of many first and most essential individuals locally that actually helped elevate our safety program to the place it’s immediately, simply from his time and dedication and keenness for rising this system,” Hartnett stated.

In 2019, Bookatz joined the board of administrators on the Safe Group Community, a nationwide nonprofit safety and security group of the Jewish neighborhood.

SCN Nationwide Director and CEO Michael Masters credited Bookatz’s work with JFC Safety LLC as foundational fashions for safety initiatives in SCN. Masters famous the skilled staff of former members of regulation enforcement, centralized command, info sharing, bodily safety, coaching and coordination with regulation enforcement – all a part of JFC Safety LLC’s foundational mannequin – impressed the design of SCN and a nationwide Jewish safety method.

When requested what made Bookatz stand out as a pacesetter to Masters, he instructed the CJN it’s “Bart’s willingness to dedicate his time and power in addition to his considerate, compassionate method to points and the neighborhood.”

Bookatz continues his work with Federation as trustee emeritus on the board of trustees, in addition to honorary member of JFC Safety LLC. Presently, Bookatz is a member of a number of Federation committees, together with the event committee, endowment fund committee and the strategic imaginative and prescient committee.

“Bart is somebody who’s there for individuals on the worst days of their lives, when they’re dropping a member of the family,” Federation President Erika B. Rudin-Luria instructed the CJN. “Bart offers with essentially the most delicate of points in essentially the most caring and sort and compassionate method. Behind the scenes, Bart is an excellent go-to individual for recommendation and he has achieved a lot as a person, skilled and volunteer to assist people and their households. He’s very particular.”

Prior to now, Bookatz was closely concerned with the Hebrew Free Mortgage Affiliation, The Temple-Tifereth Israel, now referred to as Congregation Mishkan Or, Jewish Nationwide Fund Cleveland, Northeast Ohio ORT, American Jewish Committee Cleveland and Bellefaire JCB Cleveland.

Bookatz enters his retirement as honorary life trustee to a number of organizations, equivalent to Milestones Autism Sources which Bookatz was a founding board member, in addition to Congregation Mishkan Or. He’s additionally a trustee on the Park Synagogue board, the Jewish Nationwide Fund Cleveland board and the Federation Fee on Cemetery Preservation. He has additionally been concerned with the Cleveland Rape Disaster Middle, Alzheimer’s Affiliation and FBI Residents Academy.

In his retirement, Bookatz stated he needs to search out at some point per week to volunteer at an area meals financial institution, to proceed being concerned in his neighborhood and to spend time together with his “stunning spouse, Carole, with an E,” his sons, Bryon and Bradley, and his “granddogs.”

Bookatz shared a congratulatory letter from a household he had served six years in the past, through which the household thanked him for the compassion he confirmed throughout their grief.

“‘I at all times had a peaceful and heat coronary heart after I recall the way you had been with our household,’” Bookatz learn from the letter.

“To me, that’s greater than a plaque, that I did one thing.”

Jane Matousek is the Violet Spevack Editorial Intern on the Cleveland Jewish Information and Abigail Preiszig is a contract journalist.