“The Path of the Death Doula and How that Guides Providing Comfort to the Bereaved”

Rabbi Nadya Gross and Zoe Francesca Goldblatt

End Of Life Doulas are a growing group of grassroots professionals in the End of Life field, bringing to the end of life what Birth Doulas bring to its beginnings. With a range of emotional and spiritual skill sets as well as practical, hands-on support, End of Life Doulas help to normalize death as part of life. We educate families on the dying and grief processes and help maintain an atmosphere in the dying space that is conducive to a peaceful and good death. Doulas’ perspective on grief and loss is unique, in that they practice death acceptance, and Jewish Doulas are now forming a national alliance to support Jewish families with a Jewish lens on grief, loss and death.

Zoe and Nadya will share stories of their personal experiences with families where a loved one is dying, illustrating how the support of an End of Life Doula assists with anticipatory grief and the grief following a loss. They will teach people who practice the mitzvah of Bikur Cholim about ways to enhance their practice coming from a death-positive perspective in which death is not a subject to be feared or avoided. An important benefit of this approach is helping to empower the patient and their loved ones to have agency to ask for information that will help them know all their options and make informed choices that will result in an optimal healing path on the soul level.

Register on the Bikur Cholim Conference website: https://pay.cornerstone.cc/national%20bikur%20cholim%20conference