Support on Your Own Timeline
Experiencing the loss of a pregnancy, baby, or child can feel overwhelming and isolating. We believe such a loss is experienced by the entire Jewish community. For such a tender loss, we offer funeral and memorial services at no cost. We also are home to the first dedicated Jewish space in North America for those who are mourning the death of a baby or child, The Memory Garden, in Colma at the Eternal Home Cemetery.
The resources below offer crisis support, counseling, peer connection, Jewish spiritual care, and readings. You are encouraged to use resources in whatever way feels valuable and manageable for yourself—there is no right order or timeline.
Jewish Support in the Bay Area
Jewish community and spiritual support, including pastoral care, ritual, and connection
Queer Jewish spiritual bereavement support group
Immediate Support Hotline (24/7)
Peer support for families experiencing pregnancy, infant, and child loss in San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Santa Cruz
Grief counseling and mental health and profession support for individuals and families.
National & Online Support
Funeral Service for a Miscarriage: a Jewish Mourning Story
Recommended Reading
- A Loss Worthy of Grief: Jewish Approaches to Bringing Comfort after Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Neonatal Death by National Center for Jewish Healing (2010)
- A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss (2nd Edition) by Ingrid Kohn and Perry‑Lynn Moffit (Routledge, 2000)
- Confronting the Loss of a Baby by Rabbi Yamin Levy (KTAV Publishing House, 1998)
- Rabbinical Assembly Rabbi’s Manual, Vol. 2 by Moreh Derekh (Rabbinical Assembly, 1998)
- Talking to G-d: Personal Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle and Celebration by Rabbi Naomi Levy (Image, 2003)
- Tears of Sorrow, Seeds of Hope by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1999)