I loved my grandparents and now I was standing in their presence.įinally, it was time to say farewell, but I wanted to first locate my aunt’s grave. “Yankie, this is the first time in more than fifty years that Bobbie is not at my side to hear my kiddush.” Here in Mount Hebron Cemetery my Bobbie and Zaidy were reunited. Later, he took me aside and explained why he was so emotional. My Zaidie made it halfway through and then broke down in uncontrollable sobs. With children and grandchildren surrounding my grandfather at the Shabbos table, he attempted to recite kiddush. As I stood at the foot of their graves, I vividly recalled the Shabbos of shiva when my grandmother passed away at the end of August 1959. I walked up and down the rows until I spotted their two stones, majestically standing next to each other. “Arthur Greenberger died August 17, 1914.” What did Arthur do for a living where did he live does he have grandchildren who are alive today? In the still silence of the Mount Hebron cemetery these questions remained unanswered. “Sophie Miller died July 21, 1924.” I wondered if anyone alive today knew who Sophie was. All that remained of lifetimes of memories were the mute tombstones that stood erect in perpetual immobility with but sparse information etched upon their cold surfaces. Here sleep in eternal respite friends and relatives who once upon a time built homes for their families, prayed together in synagogues and established businesses in their neighborhoods. As I drove past endless rows of tombstones, I thought of the scores of communities buried in these somber grounds. The monotony of 217,000 graves that densely cover the otherwise barren landscape is only broken by the many austere pillars, engraved with names of hundreds of burial societies. Mount Hebron is an old established cemetery with tombstones that date back to the turn of the last century. Two parallel pillars announced my grandparent’s burial society: Chevra Anshe Marmaros. I arrived at the area where my grandparents were interred. It was more than thirty and forty years respectively since my grandfather and grandmother passed away, and visiting their graves would allow me to rendezvous with their souls. My heart raced as I drove my car through the cemetery towards their plots. When the burial ended, I quickly made my way to the cemetery office and inquired where Nachman and Ettel Basch were buried. In my capacity as a practicing Rabbi, I had been to most cemeteries in the New York/New Jersey area, but it was not until recently that I visited Mount Hebron Cemetery while officiating at the funeral of a congregant’s parent. I assume that my parents wanted to spare me the harsh reality of death. Though they were buried near my home in the Mount Hebron Cemetery, in Queens, New York, my parents never took me to visit the graves of my grandparents. My grandparents, Nachman and Ettel Basch, died before I was twenty-one years old. On occasion, I would think about my Aunt Gerty and feel a tinge of pain and sadness. ![]() Years ago, my Mother, of blessed memory, told me that she had an older sister, Gerty, who died of pneumonia at age 13, and my grandparents never recovered from her demise. Nonetheless, I recently encountered her, and this left a profound impact on my soul. I never met my Aunt Gerty who died in 1933, years before I was born.
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