As Seen on CNN

The Following is a transcript of a CNN package on tattoos and Judaism.

What if...wearing your religious beliefs on your sleeve...Or on any part of your body...was exactly what your religion didn't want you to do?


Wellesley College student Rachel Lando says she is committed to Judaism...She's visited Israel and teaches Jewish children about their heritage -- as a way of expressing her jewish identity...Rachel got a tattoo -- in Hebrew.

Rachel Lando: "Some people wear prada to say this is who i am, this is what I like. Other people get tattoos."

Tattoo studios say religious tattoos are surging in popularity.

But for a jew....getting a tattoo violates a sacred law in the Torah ,or Jewish Bible.

"You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves; I am the Lord." Leviticus 19:28

According to Jewish law, the body is a gift on loan from God.

Rabbi Lucas: "We have a responsibility to take care of it and return it when it will be called for to return it in the best shape possible. The tattoo is considered to be a destruction of that body."

Tattooing has been so forbidden that many jews believe having a tattoo prevents them from being buried in a jewish cemetery. That popular notion is, well, simply an old wives' tale.

Rabbi Lucas "I suspected that some jewish mother somewhere along the line found a very effective way of discouraging her children from doing it, but it has no basis in Jewish tradition."

Rachel's mother cried when she first saw the tattoo on her daughter's back.

Rachel Lando: "'I don't know what I'm going to do, don't you want to be buried with me?' it was terrible, it was horrible, I felt so bad."

Many in the Jewish faith see tattooing as a sign of disrespect to Holocaust Survivors...who suffered involuntary tattoos at the hands of the nazis.

Out of respect for her parents -- rachel is now getting her three tattoos removed -- a painful and expensive process. But she does believe having tattoos helped her grow spiritually.

Rachel: "Subconsciously, I tried to reconnect with my judaism and I didn't know that and instead I got this tattoo. (and it worked?) Yes, it did, I guess because I'm now reconnected and I study hebrew and all these good things." (But now you're turning your back on tattoo) Yes. Exactly. (Laughs)



The bottom line is this: Getting a tattoo is a violation of Jewish law but it does not result in banishment from a Jewish cemetery. That is an old wives' tale or bubbemeisa as we like to say.