About Us: Tools and Resources

Memory Garden at Eternal Home Cemetery

When a woman loses a pregnancy, she may be left with unanswerable questions; painful struggles with her body and her beliefs; possibly nothing to bury and nothing to name. The loss is real and the grief is palpable. The spouse, partner and extended family and friends may also grieve and often feel bereft.

The Memory Garden at Sinai Memorial Chapel’s Eternal Home Cemetery was envisioned of by two Jewish mothers who suffered pregnancy losses in isolation and without the full support of our traditions and community. With full awareness of and respect for our Jewish traditions, these mothers approached Sinai and asked that a physical place be designated to honor and remember any aspect of perinatal loss. In response to their need and the needs of families like theirs, Sinai established the Memory Garden at Eternal Home Cemetery.

The Garden is a project of Sinai Memorial Chapel; the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center; and the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. It is currently in a design and fundraising phase.

What makes our Jewish tradition so profoundly useful is that it points us to what we can do when we meet the unknown and uncontrollable. The founders of Sinai Memorial Chapel Chevra Kadisha understood that while a perinatal loss may be unnamed, a responsibility to chesed shel emet (true acts of kindness) and k’vod hamet (respect for the deceased) was what would bind us to each other and to those who came before us.

We also view the establishment of the Memory Garden as a way to establish a more open community conversation about pregnancy loss without stigma and to provide education and outreach now and for generations to come.

If you wish to make a tax-deductible contribution to support the Memory Garden, you can find information here.