Groups restore Jewish cemeteries :: Charter'97 :: News

Jewish custom holds cemeteries in the highest regard, as sacred as a synagogue. The belief is that mankind, formed of the earth, should return to the ground, making it a link to the past. But the mass slaughter that removed Jews from their native lands also destroyed hundreds of their cemeteries in Europe, including the former Soviet Union. So vicious was the destruction that Jews in every corner of the globe are, in some cases, just beginning to restore some of the sites and stop further destruction.

In Europe and elsewhere, the destruction came at the hands of others; in the United States, it has been mainly through neglect, as happened in Yonkers, where for years the cemetery of the Congregation People of Righteousness, an Orthodox Jewish community that disbanded in 1969, was the target of vandals.

During the summer, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said the removal of the graves to make way for a shopping center might have violated a court-ordered agreement overseeing the process. His office questioned whether the graves of as many as 130 children were handled properly. It is a charge those responsible for the relocation dispute, and the matter is before a justice in state Supreme Court.

The worldwide movement to protect Jewish graves could not save the Yonkers cemetery, now a parking lot. But the uncertainty over the fate of some buried there resonates with many Jews, particularly those who have witnessed cemeteries destroyed.

"A Jewish cemetery is eternity in the eyes of Jews," said Dr. Sam Gruber, research director for the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America`s Heritage Abroad. "Traditional Jewish law states that graves of the dead need to be respected and cannot be violated. There is not a more sacred place. It cannot be tampered."

The commission, created in 1985, works to maintain and protect cemeteries and historic sites in Europe. Its work has led to the discovery of thousands of abandoned graves, yet Gruber said it is unknown just how many there are because few countries have conducted a systematic inventory.

The commission helps countries develop legal means to protect and preserve the sites, and it does so by making individual agreements. The group`s work is set apart from other groups whose primary goal is to document names and dates of those buried.

In Belarus, in the former Soviet Union, there is no agreement, and experts say it is one of the most troublesome areas. As recently as March, construction was taking place on the largest Jewish cemetery in the country, and some believed human remains were being mixed in the soil and eventually used to fill holes in the city`s streets. The expansion of a soccer stadium in the city of Grodno attracted so much attention that 12 U.S senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, signed a letter beseeching the president of Belarus to halt construction.

Jewish activists say the expansion project has destroyed and unearthed remains in the 300-year-old cemetery. A May posting from the Belarus Embassy said the construction work now is being done under supervision. The commission continues to work on restoration projects and form agreements with such relatively new countries as Albania, Latvia, Estonia and Bosnia.

In the United States, the Jewish Genealogical Society Inc. of New York started to document the names and cemetery locations of all Jewish burial societies in the metropolitan New York area in the early 1990s. The JewishGen On-Line Worldwide Burial Registry is part of the International Jewish Cemetery Project run by the International Association of the Jewish Genealogical Society.

Joyce Field, vice president of data acquisition for JewishGen, said three years of collecting records paid off when the registry went online last year. The organization relies on volunteers who visit cemeteries, take photographs and document names on tombstones to be entered into a master database. There are about 10,000 images that need to be added to the database. Although the volunteers are not involved in the physical restoration, their work is keeping alive the history of the cemeteries.

"They are dealing with an ancestral emotional connection," Field said. "These are people who do not want their ancestors to be obliterated from history. There is a sense of duty. A commitment to memorialize those who died. It was something that really needed to be done. So we did it."

The Conference of Academicians for the Protection of Jewish Cemeteries works mainly out of Europe but advocates for a national registry in all states with active cemeteries. In the United States, people often lose contact with the cemetery, said Dr. Bernard Fryshman, a member of the steering committee.

During the late 19th and 20th centuries, Jews who had immigrated to America would form landsmanshaftn, societies made up of those from the same town or region of Eastern Europe. The groups provided newcomers emotional and financial support. The societies also would purchase burial plots so family and friends could be buried together. Chevra kadisha, burial societies, maintained the grave sites.

But a combination of changing demographics, lack of education in Jewish customs and intermarriage led to the downturn of many cemeteries. Gruber emphasizes that it is not intentional neglect.

In the United States, there are far fewer cases of abandoned cemeteries, yet organizations have been formed to protect the few that remain.

One such effort is being launched in Queens, where the 150-year-old Bayside Cemetery has struggled against vandalism and the ravages of nature. Now, families of those buried there and Jewish leaders are trying to restore the area.

Rabbi Lazar Stern, U.S. chairman of the Athra Kadisha Society, lauds the movement but argues the work is not being done fast enough.

"Whole cemeteries that we don`t know of will disappear," Stern said.

Yet Gruber sees great promise in his work.

"We are really quite proud of what has been done. Some places take a long time to get sites protected, and there are more than I can do in my lifetime," he said.