For more than 25 years, Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary has held its annual Kever Avot service as a meaningful opportunity for families to honor and remember their loved ones. This year, that tradition is getting a thoughtful refresh, built around a simple idea: people carry memory differently, and they deserve more than one way to express it.
A Season for Reflection
This year and next, Kever Avot falls on Erev Yom Kippur, the eve of the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It is a morning already carrying weight and reflection, and it felt like the right moment to expand what remembrance can look like at Hillside.
New Ways to Remember
From 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., families will find three interactive stations spread throughout the park, each offering a different way to hold a memory.
At the floral arranging station, guests can choose blooms that remind them of someone they have lost, by color, fragrance, or personal connection, and build a small bouquet to place at a resting place or bring home.
At the letter-writing station, Love Letters, No Address Required, guests are invited to write whatever is in their hearts: a thought left unsaid, a simple I love you, or I miss you more than words can say. Letters can be taken home, left at a resting place, or included in Hillside's Notes to the Wall program, which delivers them to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
At the Wish Tree, guests write a wish, reflection, or message on colored paper and tie it to a small tree with ribbon. Throughout the morning, the tree fills in, becoming a visible, shared expression of memory and hope.
Live music will accompany the morning as well, with a violinist in the Garden of Solomon and a guitarist or harpist in the Matriarchs Garden, offering a gentle, reflective presence throughout the park.
New Ways to Imagine the Service
The traditional Kever Avot service remains part of the morning too. At 10:00 a.m. in the Large Chapel, Rabbi Mark and Shelly will lead a shorter, more intimate service, joined by Michael Gropper sounding the shofar. Guests will have the opportunity to light an electric candle in memory of their loved ones, and the service will close with a memorial montage and a reception on the patio.
Hillside's grief support group will also continue as always, meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Small Chapel. For those who would like guidance finding their way, a Concierge and an Information Table will offer maps throughout the morning, and a Shomer will be on site for anyone seeking prayer assistance.
Traditions for a New Generation
This refreshed approach reflects something Hillside believes deeply: tradition endures by making room for the people carrying it forward. Rather than asking every family to grieve in the same way, this format lets each person engage in whatever way feels most personal, whether that is a quiet letter, a bouquet of flowers, a ribbon tied to a tree, or the familiar sound of the shofar.
It is, in many ways, exactly what our tagline promises: traditions for a new generation.
Join us this year at Hillside for Kever Avot, and honor your loved ones in whatever way feels most like you. Learn more
here
