Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, will be recited Friday morning in Paris at the funeral of Jewish-born French Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger.

Lustiger, who died last Sunday aged 80, was the only Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism to become a French archbishop in modern times.

His funeral at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris will be preceeded by a “Jewish family prayer” on the Cathedral’s square.

Psalm 113 will first be recited in Hebrew and French by a great-great-cousin, Jonas Moses Lustiger. Historian Arno Lustiger, the cardinal’s cousin who lives in Germany will then say the Kaddish “with all who want to join the prayer.” Gila Lustiger, Arno’s daughter, who lives in Israel, is a renowned novelist.

Sand taken from the Holy Land from a monastery near Jericho and in a garden at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem will be put on Lustiger’s coffin.

“To say Kaddish was one of the last wishes of my cousin,” Arno Lustiger, said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy will break his American holiday and return briefly to France to attend Friday’s funeral.
http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/19074