PAGE 10A
HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, JANUARY 3, 2014
Many U.S. Jewish cemeteries in neglect
By Julie Wiener
NEW YORK (JTA)--For
years, the historic Jewish
cemetery was so overgrown
with weeds, plagued by top-
pled headstones, and littered
with fallen branches, beer
cans and snack-food wrap-
pers that at least a quarter
of its graves were impossible
to reach.
Even now, after a $140,000
cleanup and improved main-
tenance procedures, the
35,000-grave cemetery relies
on the generosity of a non-
Jewish volunteer to repair
its tombstones, fences and
mausoleums.
The cemetery isn't in East-
ern Europe. It's the Bayside
Cemetery in the Queens
borough of New York City,
and it's among countless
Jewish cemeteries across the
country in varying states of
disrepair. Some 40 to 50 of
them are in the New York
area alone.
There are a plethora of rea-
sons for Jewish cemeteries'
troubles. Many are owned by
synagogues, associations or
burial societies that no lon-
ger exist or are on their last
legs. Once a cemetery stops
bringing in revenues - i.e.
fresh graves--the operat-
ing budget dries up unless
sufficient money has been
set aside for the long term.
At Bayside, annual cemetery
upkeep costs $90,000.
"Based on current prac-
tices, substantially all Jewish
cemeteries will be unable to
pay for their upkeep within
25 to 50 years after their
last grave is sold," said Gary
Katz, president of New York's
Community Association for
Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries,
a group founded in 2007
and funded largely by UJA-
Federation of New York.
While most nonprofit cem-
eteries are required to put
aside a certain percentage of
their revenues into endow-
ment funds for the future--
ranging from 10 percent to
40 percent, depending on
the state--most experts say
that amount is not enough
to ensure a cemetery will
courtesy of the Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries
A section of New York's Bayside Cemetery in Queens before a UJA-Federation-funded
cleanup.
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courtesy of the Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries
The same section of New York's Bayside Cemetery in Queens after the UJA-Federation-
funded cleanup.
remain financially viable.
Furthermore, many Jewish
cemeteries are registered
as religious organizations
and wholly exempt from
state regulations. At such
cemeteries, plot owners
have no way of knowing
whether the family plot will
be maintained two or three
generations on.
Mark Stempa, who ac-
cording to tax filings earned
more than $500,000 in
2012 running two large
nonprofit Jewish cemeter-
ies in Queens--Mount Zion
and Mount Carmel--and is
a paid board member of a
third, says his cemeteries are
approaching capacity and al-
ready relying on investment
income to cover operations.
"We conservatively invest,
and hopefully that income
generated from the trust
funds is going to care for
the cemetery in the future,"
he told JTA. But, Stempa
acknowledged, "What's go-
ing to happen in 100 years,
I really don't know."
By the time a cemetery
is full, it should have 20
times its annual operating
expenses in an endowment,
says Stan Kaplan, chairman
of the Jewish Cemetery As-
sociation of North America
and executive director of the
Jewish Cemetery Association
of Massachusetts. But few
do, he says.
"As the community chang-
es, we'll have more defaults,"
Kaplan said.
In city after city, local
Jewish communities- often,
as in Bayside's case, the local
federation - are having to
step in and put up money to
save Jewish burial grounds.
"If the cemetery doesn't
have enough money and its
owners abandon it, whose
responsibility will it be to
take care of it?" asked David
Zinner, executive director of
Kavod v'Nichum, a national
organization that provides
training to Jewish burial
societies.
A number of communities
are trying to ensure that
their Jewish cemeteries
are cared for in perpetuity
by reshaping the way their
cemeteries operate. The
focus is on collaboration
and long-term financial
planning.
The Jewish Cemeteries
of Greater Cincinnati was
established as a nonprofit
in 2004 by pooling the en-
dowments of struggling and
financially viable cemeter-
ies and raising $6 million.
The organization now runs
most of the Cincinnati area's
Jewish cemeteries.
"We were very fortunate
to have the Jewish founda-
tion willing to put up a
lot of money to make this
happen," said David Hoguet,
executive director of the
organization. "If money
were available in other cit-
ies, you'd see more of this
happening."
The Jewish Cemetery
Association of Massachu-
setts, created in 1984, now
manages 108 cemeteries. It
originally took over only in-
solvent cemeteries, but later
absorbed several healthy and
operational ones as well. It
has raised $10 million to
endow its operations--one-
fourth of what is needed to
cover its annual expenses in
perpetuity.
A cemetery association
launched in 2004 by the
Jewish federation in New
Haven, Conn., has taken
ownership of eight cemeter-
ies and created a centralized
maintenance system that
other Jewish cemeteries
pay to use.
But cemetery collectives
are the exception rather than
the rule. Most Jewish com-
munities don't have any cen-
tral association to deal with
cemeteries, and those that do
often have minimal funding
or limited purviews. It's also
hard to get operational and
financially healthy cemeter-
ies that might be able to
subsidize the care of other
cemeteries to come under a
communal umbrella.
Zinner says Jewish com-
munities need to face the
challenges of cemetery
maintenance collectively -
and ahead of time.
"Don't wait until there's
a disaster," he said. "Every
Jewish cemetery should
have a representative of the
Jewish community at large
on its board."
