Ashkenazic Funeral: Carrying the Body to the Grave

German Protestant theologian Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz was born in Hof, Bavaria. He studied oriental languages at the University of Jena and developed a scholarly interest in Jewish custom and ritual. He published his four-volume Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany) in 1748/49. Bodenschatz is also reported to have made elaborate models of Noah’s ark and the Tabernacle (Heb., mishkan), the portable sanctuary built by Moses as a place of worship for the Israelites during their wanderings in the desert.