This recent thread brought to mind a question or two. What is the signifigance of placing a stone on top of the grave or headstone at a Jewish funeral?
Also, is it a widespread custom to ritually ‘wash’ ones hands after the funeral?
The pebbles are to show that you were there and remembering them. Not being Jewish, I don’t know all of the rituals used, though there is a certain period of sitting ‘shiva’ where the house is prepared for guests to come and share memories and show respect, and there are other rituals that individuals do - it is still very similar to many Christian observances as well - a shiva is somewhat like a wake or mourning period, people modify the house to show mourning [covering mirrors, covering art, stopping clocks and so forth]
I think there is no religion/culture where the family just sort of turfs the body into a landfill and goes off on their daily business.
a) Way back, there were no big engraved markers like we have. Graves were marked simply by a pile of rocks. Visitors would combat the natural falling of the rocks by adding a few to keep the pile big. That’s no longer needed, but it morphed into a custom of leaving a mark that someone has visiited. Nothing more esoteric than that.
b) The hand washing is at the other end of the esoteric scale. Oversimplified, death is the strongest source of spiritual impurity, and washing helps to get rid of it.
You’re supposed to place a rock whenever you visit the grave, not at the funeral (where guests are expected to help shovel dirt). I placed a pebble on Jim Morrison’s grave in Père Lachaise.
Also, you’re supposed to wash your hands whenever you leave a graveyard. Most Jewish graveyards have faucets at the entrances.
The mirror thing I know. Clocks?
Also, just to be clear, the rock thing is custom. Don’t know of the Sephardim do it, in fact.
Although there’s a rabbinic ruling that if local custom is old and strong enough it should be respected as law.
They do.
Would it be considered offensive if people of other faiths did the same thing? I like that particular custom, but I’m not Jewish.
The Basque do it for memorials (not gravesites, usually). I was taught that if I encountered a memorial I was to say a prayer for whomever it was for and add a pebble to it - even if I had no idea who it was for. It’s for another human being, that’s enough.
[hijack]
This gives me a chance to share a funny story about my late uncle (a Holocaust survivor, btw, who was at Dora, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz).
Once, very late in his life (around age 90!), he was at a funeral and was dutifully helping shovel some of the dirt back into the grave when he lost his balance, slipped, and fell in! Mostly as a precaution (given his age), he was taken to the hospital to be assessed.
From that day on, he got a real kick out of telling anyone who’d listen that many people go from the hospital to the grave, but he went from the grave to the hospital!
A remarkable man, in his 80’s he wrote a book about his experiences during the war.
[/hijack]
Since the question has been answered and there’s a humorous anecdote, I’d like to share a joke.
A man’s mother-in-law died. When asked what kind of monument he’d like to put over the grave, he said ‘A very heavy one!’
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls…
Dunno, but I always do it at any grave I visit and AFAIK I’m not Jewish.
Offensive, no. But I wonder if it might confuse others, who might wonder if the person buried there had been Jewish.
I don’t see why anyone would take offense at a non-Jew leaving a stone on the grave of a Jewish person. I can’t speak about how a non-Jew would feel about you leaving a stone on the grave of their loved one, though. Or the groundskeeper at that cemetery.
Thanks for all of the answers. 
You place a rock to indicate that you visited for the same reason people place flowers on a grave. But traditionally there are no flowers at a Jewish funeral and we don’t place them on graves. People do nowadays, but it’s not traditional.
Jewish tradition places heavy emphasis on NOT spending excess money on funerals, burial etc. Traditionally, Jews are buried wearing only a shroud (the groom actually wears this as his outer garment when he is married) in a plain wooden box. Money spent on flowers etc is considered vain and wasteful. This is, IMO, one of the reasons that the tradition of placing a pebble on a tombstone has survived. It shows that the deceased is remembered and cared about, without requiring a purchase of flowers.
There are a lot of pebbles on the joint (head-to-head) headstone of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
Also the flowers will die quickly and the rock will stay there for a long time.
For a period of time when younger I lived with a guy who decided he wanted to go back to his roots and became fairly old fashioned orthodox, and when his father died the family had covered the mirrors, art and clocks. As none of the visitors to the house found it unusual, I made the surmise that it was a common behavior when someone in the house died.
Now I just have lots of duplicate cookware 