By Norman Greene
SAN DIEGO — If you are up for solving mysteries and maybe uncovering a few new ones, you can learn a great deal by visiting an old Jewish cemetery in the heart of Brooklyn, New York.
For years. My late father would become very melancholy four or five days before the yahrzeits of his parents, but he never took me to their graves somewhere in Brooklyn. We would visit my mother’s parents’ graves in Norwalk, Connecticut, each year around the High Holidays, but Dad never made a move towards Brooklyn. True, Brooklyn was a long ways away from West Hartford, Connecticut where we lived until the late 1960’s. Once my folks were living in San Diego, the subject never came up.
I have long wondered why there were no visits, but I guess I never raised the subject directly with my parents. I only knew my father adored his father and barely knew his mother who died in childbirth in 1910. In retrospect, I think it must have been too painful for Dad and so he avoided it. Actually, he told me very little about his childhood, except that he was always very hungry, was very close to his father and absolutely detested his step-mother, Libby.
Once when my father seemed particularly “blue,” I asked him if he even remembered his mother?
That brought on an indignant response. “Of course!” he exclaimed.
“Dad, how old were you when she passed away? “
He told me that he was four years old. And for many years I believed him.
After my wife Roberta and I attended a New Jersey Bat Mitzvah on her side of the family, we had dinner in Manhattan with one of my first cousins, Bunny Greene Fleischer who is the youngest daughter of my father’s second oldest brother. There were six brothers, a half brother and sister and two step-sisters. All of them are gone now. During the course of the meal, I asked my cousin if she knew where our grandparents were buried? Somewhat startled, she replied: “They’re in Brooklyn,” but she couldn’t remember the name of the cemetery. Sometime before coffee, Bunny recalled the Washington Cemetery. Step one had been achieved.
Two days later, we drove to Brooklyn, which has always seemed like another country to me on the rare occasions I ventured into that newly fashionable borough. You can get very lost in Brooklyn. Every street and highway seem to have the name “Prospect” in it. Arriving at Washington Cemetery, I was shocked to find the gate locked shut and the little cemetery office closed just as tightly. It was 3:35 in the afternoon. The sign listed closing hours at 3:30. They certainly were prompt. We left Brooklyn very disappointed.
Before our second visit two days later, we stopped at Katz’s Deli on Houston Street to pick up their world famous corn beef sandwiches with sour pickles and sour tomatoes that make my mouth water at the thought. And off we drove to the Washington Cemetery. This time I had called in advance and was given the burial sites. Amazingly the cemetery is computerized, which –considering it’s age dating back to New York’s founding– is a wonder. The cemetery is enormous, covering many acres and divided by parkways, boulevards and many small streets. I would guess that it is as large as Central Park, but more complicated.
According to cemetery records, my grandparents were buried side by side (graves #4 & 5 inside gate 403) in the third row of unit four of this over-crowded burial ground.
Even knowing the burial information, we had no idea how to find the site in the sprawling cemetery. So, we stopped in the office to check. “In which direction do we walk,” my wife asked of the older Russian clerk behind the counter. “You vant to valk?” she responded. “Not possible!“ she added in a positively Soviet manner. We drove according to her penciled directions stopping only to devour our corn beef sandwiches.
Finally, we found the Cypress Street entrance and walked down a very narrow path cram packed with recent headstones. Each featured pictures of the departed signifying there were Russian Jews buried there. Reaching gate 403 we found there were no neat rows of tombstones. We had to step on numerous graves to reach what should have been the third row where we had been told my grandparents were buried side by side.
When we found Grandma Celia’s headstone, my grandfather’s grave was nowhere in sight. Her double headstone was shared by someone named “Rachel Rosenstein,” who died in June six months after Celia (age 32) in 1910. At the base of the double headstone was the inscription “Our Mothers.” I didn’t, and still don’t, have a clue as to who she was and what their relationship might have been. I never heard of Rachel Rosenstein. Who was she to share eternity with my grandmother?
After considerable searching and climbing, we found my Grandfather Isaac N. Greene’s tall grey granite headstone. He had passed away in 1926, sixteen years after his wife’s passing. I was shocked that he was only 48 at the time, a widower at age 32. From the only two pictures I have of my grandfather, I would have guessed that he was much older.
All three markers had a great deal of Hebrew engraved on them. I took photos of the inscriptions. There were lines and lines of Hebrew inscriptions on my Grandma Celia’s side and just a few lines on Rachael’s. I couldn’t translate what was said, but from the dates, I realized that my own father had only been two years old when his mother died in childbirth. Dad was orphaned at age 18.
The cemetery had no record of Libby Dembrovsky Greene, my grandfather’s second wife. It seems logical that she would have been buried in the same cemetery. No one I know has any knowledge of her resting place. Another mystery.
The next day we flew home to San Diego and the following day, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, our friend Ron Huldai, came to our home for coffee. He graciously offered to translate the Hebrew inscriptions. For the first time in my life, I learned that my Grandmother was the daughter of Hyam Haykel. I’m not sure if “Haykel” was Celia’s maiden name or his middle name. I also learned that my grandfather was the son of Jacob Moses. Strangely, none of Grandpa’s seven biological sons were named after Jacob Moses.
My Grandfather’s headstone was written in Libby’s voice. It proclaimed what a wonderful husband, father and generous person he had been. Considering that his family lived at poverty’s door, I couldn’t understand how generous he could have been. Was Libby alluding to the fact that he had given half of his first wife’s headstone to Rachel?
Back to Rachel Rosenstein, the headstone simply proclaimed that she had “an unhappy, short life.” Unlike my grandmother’s inscription, there was no mention that Rachel had been married or had children, which certainly didn’t explain the “Our Mothers” line across the bottom of the double headstone.
I have reported all these facts to see if any of my surviving cousins have any information. There really are so few people living to ask. To date, there have been no positive responses. So far my limited research into old newspaper death notices has contributed nothing. The mystery remains as to why Rachel was buried in a plot that the cemetery records indicate is occupied by my Grandfather Isaac N. Greene, no word on Libby Greene’s burial site, and no information about who Rachel Rosenstein was.
Perhaps this all will remain a mystery. I guess I should have explored the Washington Cemetery many, many years ago.
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Greene is a freelance writer who lives in San Diego. Your comment may be posted in the space below or sent directly to the author via norman.greene@sdjewishworld.com