Laser portraits on Jewish gravestones are a common means of personalizing the stones in the former Soviet Union — and now this trend has been transported to the United States by recent immigrants.
The Forward runs a wonderful narrated slide show of some of these stones in a Jewish cemetery in New York, along with an article by Josh Nathan-Kazis.
Here are a few such stones in Sharhorod (Shargorod) Ukraine:
Starting in the latter part of the 19th century, long before laser technology came in, it was common practice in many countries to attached enamel photographs of the deceased on headstones.
Here a just a few of these — some of the images are very haunting, and of course it all flies in the face of ritual strictures against portraying the human face and form:
