By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK — The Hebrew Free Burial Association has been burying indigent Jews in the New York area since 1888, and in recent years has been doing its interments in Staten Island. One intriguing aspect is that volunteers from synagogues,and yeshivas in the area and beyond attend the funerals to help form a minyan and ensure a proper Jewish burial for the deceased strangers.
In January of last year, the Staten Island Advance published a story I did about the Association (it appears below), and, when I sent a copy of it to my son Harvey, a lawyer on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, he remarked that the timing of it was quite a coincidence because he was helping a rabbi (pro bono, I’m proud to say) establish a Jewish cemetery on Kauai.
When he showed the story to the Chabad rabbi, Michoel Goldman– the rabbi, one of 11 children of a South African rabbi and rebbetzin –replied to Harvey in part: “This is fascinating indeed…I lived on Staten Island for about a year and…I even participated in a funeral at that very cemetery when they needed someone to help a minyan say Kaddish…for someone I never knew.”
But, he continued, “I don’t see it as “coincidental” at all, rather Providential. I.e. the same underlying Force which made that happen (inspired the HFBA, caused your father to be intrigued by it and drawn to publish an article on it, at this very time…), has led us to you at this very time for a very similar cause, thousands of miles away.”
The Kauai Jewish cemetery — Kauai Jewish Memorial Garden (KJMG), website kjmg.org — is now a reality, where three burials have taken place, including one of a man from Florida, who chose to be buried in Kauai “so he could be near his son.”
A non-Jewish cabinet-maker has been engaged to make plain, unadorned caskets, in accordance with Jewish law. The 501c13 non-profit cemetery is accepting contributions to assist with the purchase of the parcel of land. It offers individuals who would underwrite the project the right to name the cemetery after their loved ones or, posthumously, after themselves.
“I never imagined myself even being in the burial business,” Rabbi Goldman commented, emphasizing that the “word businessis merely an expression here; I don’t want people to think we’re making money on this.”
“It’s all part of the mystery of life, unfolding, and it’s incredibly inspiring to know that we’re in sync with a Larger Unifying Force in the universe.”
the newspaper article:
Staten Island’s Hebrew Free Burial Association: Providing free traditional Jewish burial
Adjacent to Historic Richmond Town, Mount Richmond Cemetery is maintained by the Hebrew Free Burial Association. Since 1888, the nonprofit organization has served the needs of impoverished Jews, providing “a prompt, dignified Jewish funeral and burial.” (Staten Island Advance)
By Joel H. Cohen
Special to the Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — When the tragic fire at Manhattan’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 took the lives of 146 poor young garment workers, 22 Jews among the victims (18 women and four men) were destined for burial in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island.
But, thanks to a 126-year-old non-profit organization, known today as the Hebrew Free Burial Association (HFBA), the indigent victims — most of them immigrants, many in their teens — were given traditional Jewish burial at Staten Island’s Mount Richmond Cemetery on Clarke Avenue in Richmond.
The guiding philosophy throughout its history was expressed by Amy Koplow, the association’s executive director: “Everyone, regardless of money, religion or the number of surviving loved ones, deserves the dignity of a respectable funeral. No one’s remains should be deep in a pauper’s grave, unvisited and unknown.”
Established in 1808 as The Society of the Brotherhood of True Charity by nine Jewish men to serve residents of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the organization soon expanded to serve the Metropolitan area. In 1892, it bought its first burial ground on Staten Island, Silver Lake Cemetery on Victory Boulevard where, in the next 17 years, it conducted nearly 15,000 burials.
In 1909, seeking more burial space for the city’s indigent Jewish population, it acquired Mount Richmond. There, nearly 60,000 Jewish men, women and children have been interred, 300 to 400 a year.
Early burials were of immigrants and others whose families couldn’t afford burial, having spent what little they had on medical care. Many were babies and mothers, victims of epidemics, hazardous working conditions or inadequate care.
During the Spanish-American War, war dead came from Manila; in the World War II era, many buried had been Holocaust survivors or refugees from the former Soviet Union.
Buried on Association grounds, too, are parents of Eddie Cantor and Clara Bow and the grandparents of Mel Brooks (presumably, before their progeny became celebrities).
In the early 1900s, the association’s supporters numbered about 4,000 members, most of whom each contributed less than five dollars annually. Today, it depends on contributions from individuals, United Jewish Appeal-Federation and foundations.
HFBA conducts an annual cemetery clean-up project, where volunteers of all ages rake and clear debris at Silver Lake and older areas at Mount Richmond. Individuals donate to a campaign to place stones on and repair headstones, and ensure all graves are marked.
The largest free burial society outside of Israel, HFBA charges for some of its burials, on an honor-system sliding scale. Some able to pay select Mount Richmond, as did an Army general who qualified for burial at Arlington National Cemetery but chose Mount Richmond.
During the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, association workers persevered against severe handicaps. Road closings, bridge and tunnel driving restrictions and the city’s no-exception “three-people-to-a-vehicle” restriction severely limited the pick up and transport of bodies, as did flooding in the Bellevue morgue.
One long-time staff member is Rabbi Shmuel Plafker, who has been the cemetery chaplain at Mount Richmond for 21 years, a job he considers a “calling, never a drag or a downer.”
He’s proud to provide a “proper Jewish burial service,” including ritual preparation, dressing the deceased in a shroud, and a simple coffin.
To survivors of the deceased who may have no background in Jewish customs, Rabbi Plafker explains the components of what he considers the beauty of a Jewish funeral — such items as escorting the body to the grave, and of shoveling earth on the casket. He invites people who knew the deceased to eulogize in a language most comfortable (often Russian).
He advises family members on shiva (the traditional seven-day mourning period) and generally “helps with their sorrow, provides a shoulder to cry on.”
But Rabbi Plafker estimates that in about a third of the 300-400 funerals the association performs annually, the deceased has no surviving family, and in 40 percent, no friend either. “So we need the volunteers.”
He’s referring to volunteers who, for the past three years, have been appearing regularly, regardless of weather, at Mount Richmond funerals to ensure a minyan (a quorum of at least 10 Jewish men) so the Kaddish and other traditional prayers for the dead can be said. There have been days when as many as three funerals required their attendance.
The project developed when a congregant of Congregation B’nai Israel, Bay Terrace, sought volunteers to attend the funeral of a colleague, son of deceased Holocaust survivors who himself had no survivors. About 50 men from Island synagogues and schools, and some as far away as Monsey, N.Y., responded.
All are glad to ensure a proper religious burial for a stranger — with no expectation of having the act repaid, the highest form of kindness in Jewish tradition.
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Cohen is a freelance writer based in New York.