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Ferne and Ron Page share a lot of things: their pet dog Oliver, trips to the flea market and visits to the local synagogue.

But the Toronto couple married 25 years ago figuring they wouldn't be sharing one thing: a gravesite.

According to the laws of her religion, Ms. Page, who is an observant Jew, can't be buried in a traditional Jewish cemetery beside her husband, who hasn't converted to Judaism and doesn't plan to.

The thought of being buried in separate places was something the couple had accepted, but only grudgingly.

"We've been together for so long. I think as part of the life we've lived together, we'd like to be buried together," said Ms. Page, 66.

This week, she found out they may get that chance. Toronto's Temple Sinai, a Reformist synagogue where Ms. Page sometimes brings her 67-year-old husband, announced it purchased a plot of land in the Lambton Mills Cemetery where it will offer 130 sites for intermarried couples in its congregation.

It's a move meant to promote inclusiveness in a congregation with more and more interfaith couples, Senior Rabbi Michael Dolgin said.

"It was only appropriate to create a place for these people who choose to live their lives affiliated with the Jewish community," he said.

But other couples across Canada may not be so fortunate.

Figures from the 2001 census show there are approximately 175,200 Canadian couples in which one partner is Jewish and the other isn't. For years, the spouses were buried either separately or in secular cemeteries.

Interfaith burial sites have emerged as a place where mixed-marriage families could be buried together without breaking the rules of the liberal Jewish faith, which asserts that a Jewish person can be buried close to someone who is not Jewish, but a certain distance from them, and only if the plot is owned by the Jewish person and there is a proper Jewish burial, Rabbi Dolgin said.

It's a solution driven by the shift toward intermarriage in Judaism, said Martin Lockshin, a professor of Jewish studies at York University and an ordained Orthodox rabbi.

"There's an interesting new phenomenon of people marrying out, but still considering themselves Jewish and proud of their Jewish identity and staying involved in the Jewish community," he said.

"This cohort hasn't existed before."

As that cohort swells to an estimated 50 per cent of Jews in the United States, Jewish cemeteries in most big cities there have created interfaith sections.

But the concept has yet to make significant inroads in Canada, said Rabbi David Mivasair of Ahavat Olam Synagogue in Vancouver. He's been trying to secure B.C.'s first interfaith burial plot, but has yet to raise enough money and support.

Each Jewish cemetery in Canada has its own bylaws and governs whether it will allow for a section of the cemetery for only half-Jewish couples, which makes them hard to track.

"Generally the people who build and manage and control synagogues and cemeteries tend to be those people with the strongest attachment to our culture, our religion, our traditions," Rabbi Mivasair said. "They're most likely last to change."

The topic is not raised in most Orthodox and conservative sects because it violates Jewish law, said Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America.

"If they were to bury that non-Jewish person outside the fence, that would be acceptable for the most part, but not within the confines of the cemetery," he said.

Rabbi Dolgin began looking for a site after being approached by three members of his congregation within six months. But it took seven years to nail down a spot - the Temple Sinai committee was turned down by a few Toronto Jewish cemeteries before Lambton Mills, a non-sectarian Jewish cemetery, sold them land, he said.

No symbolism from other religions will be allowed on Temple Sinai plots; nor can a leader from another religion officiate a funeral there, in keeping with the Jewish laws, he added.

That's fine for Judith Miller and her non-Jewish husband Clinton, who plan to buy a plot in the Lambton cemetery.

"It's important to me to think I now can be buried next to my husband," she said, envisioning a dual plot with the Star of David on her stone and plain lettering on her husband's.

Ms. Page is relieved to know she and her husband will be together in the grave without breaking the tenets of her religion.

"We'd been together through the good times and bad times," Ms. Page said. "I want to continue to bug him throughout eternity."