The Beth El Memorial Park Foundation:
Preserving the Heritage of the MetroWest Jewish Community

The Beth El Memorial Park Foundation, which functions as the Cemetery Committee of the Community Relations Committee, has been active for many years in rehabilitating and restoring the historic Jewish cemeteries in the greater Newark area. Particularly where there is no remaining group or synagogue responsible for a given cemetery – as many were created by burial societies which are now defunct – we take responsibility to restore those cemeteries through a small endowment fund. Much of our efforts go to securing cemetery fencing, walls, and uprighting stones which are fallen. Unfortunately we, too, are familiar with cemetery vandalism, which is not uncommon and impacts on our commitment to maintain and rehabilitate the historic Jewish cemeteries. In preserving the cemeteries and the graves of those who have passed, we carry out the highest form of honor to another, the one for which there is no possibility of repayment.

Please read on and consider a contribution to the Beth El Memorial Park Foundation to assist in the maintenance of these historic cemeteries.

Background
The City of Newark is the urban forerunner to our present, largely suburban, MetroWest Jewish community which has moved westward. It represents our heritage as a community, regardless of whether some of our personal family histories include tales of Newark or Brooklyn or Bayonne or Philadelphia. At its heyday in the 1950s, there were some 90,000 Jews living in Newark, supporting as many as 60 synagogues, all but one of which are now closed. These synagogues, as well as an extraordinary number of fraternal organizations and landsmenshaften, each represented small clusters of parochial Jewish concerns. Naturally, each one also established its own cemetery in Newark as a reflection of the community’s rich religious and cultural expression.

Today, coordinated visits to the Newark cemeteries require the assistance of local police for protection. We return to see that the ornate gates and signs, denoting more than 80 separate burial societies, are no longer there. Numerous tombstones have been knocked down through a combination of natural erosion and malicious vandalism. On few headstones can one find the remnant stones left behind to mark that a visitor has come to honor the deceased.

Yet there is much passion about the state of our cemeteries. The Community Relations Committee frequently hears from MetroWest constituents about the condition of Newark area Jewish cemeteries. Unlike most of the things we could take with us as we moved westward, the cemeteries in Newark remain as granite fixtures amidst a community in flux all around them. They are a standing reminder of the vibrant Jewish life that once functioned in Newark. Whether or not our own family members lay at rest there, we all take ownership of the fate of this collective monument to our Jewish past in Newark.

The following are four major initiatives of the Beth El Memorial Park Foundation board:

1. Communal areas/common spaces: With the limited available funds, our community has begun the work of securing the Jewish cemeteries in the Newark areas by rehabilitating the fences and gates at two cemeteries, both in the South Orange Avenue area and near Newark Liberty International Airport. The Grove Street Cemetery has been re-fenced so that any further rehab work will be protected. Other cemetery restoration projects are being undertaken in cooperation with those MetroWest community synagogues that own and maintain historic cemeteries in Newark. We have undertaken major initiatives to re-erect fallen stones in various cemeteries.
2. High Holiday Visiting Day: At the High Holy Day season each year, Jews go to the sites of their loved ones’ graves, a practice going back millennia. UJC MetroWest has organized an annual community-wide visit to the Newark historic cemeteries, secured by local law enforcement, for over a decade.
3. Indigent burials: The neediest members of the community should receive a proper Jewish burial. We continue to make plots available in these cases.
4. Grave census: The Jewish Genealogical Society, through volunteer efforts, has been conducting a comprehensive inventory of all those buried in the Newark Jewish cemeteries. Their work helps to create a lasting record of the community – a different memorial. In these ways, the Jewish community can fulfill its mission to restore dignity to the Jewish cemeteries and to the Jewish people.

Yet, it is also incumbent upon each of us individually to assume responsibility for our communal legacy in Newark. There are affirmative steps that each of us may take to imbue these historic cemeteries with the respect they deserve. First, those who have family members buried in the Newark historic cemeteries ought to do their part by paying for endowed or perpetual care for their family graves. Assuming this maintenance cost is a basic step toward repair and to prevent further deterioration. Second, urge your congregations with historic cemeteries to do their part to maintain this legacy of the past. Put the cemetery back into the discussion of synagogue priorities. Third, by joining in the communal visit to the cemeteries during the High Holidays and at other times, you can reinforce the message that the Jewish people care about those who came before and show that their graves are cared for. You may choose to assist the census efforts of the Jewish Genealogical Society which regularly seeks volunteers for their honorable work. Finally, some may choose financial support of the Beth El Memorial Park Foundation, which works on behalf of the entire Jewish community.

For more information, contact Lori Price Abrams, Director, Community Relations Committee/Secretary of the Beth El Memorial Park Foundation, at [email protected] or (973) 929-3080.