Cemetery paves the way

If the saying is, you've got to start somewhere, the Jewish addendum would be, let that somewhere be the cemetery. There are three phases of organization in a Jewish community. First comes a burial society, followed by a place of worship and charity services.

As David Silverberg, former president and presently financial adviser of the Sioux City Jewish Cemetery Association, puts it, "You need a place if something happens."

Rabbi Simon Glazer wrote in his 1904 history, "The Jews of Iowa," in a chapter devoted to Sioux City: "It is very remarkable that the few Jewish pioneers of Sioux City should have thought of death before any form of an organization was considered. For in 1869, when their entire number did not exceed 25 souls, a meeting took place among them and its prime object was a cemetery."

The land for the cemetery in Cole's Addition was donated by Godfrey Hattenbach, who was generally acknowledged as the first Jewish settler to arrive in Sioux City back in 1857. In 1884, the Mount Sinai Cemetery Association was established by the Jewish Ladies Society with the purchase of a section of Floyd Cemetery for burial purposes as one of its objectives. The original cemetery in Cole's Addition was sold and the bodies buried there were transferred to the new cemetery Mount Carmel.

Over the years, Silverberg said. the city's three congregations, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, developed their own cemeteries. With a Jewish population that reached 3,000, to 4.000, the need was evident, "and each one started their own cemetery situation because they basically had different laws," he said.

The Orthodox established the Independent Farane out on Lakeport. The Conservatives had Mount Carmel, which was part of Floyd Cemetery. And the Reform Jews had their own section of Floyd Cemetery, which was called Mount Sinai.

"So there were three cemeteries and three independent organizations," he said, and with a declining Jewish population, this just didn't sit right with a lot of people -- in particular with Silverberg who was working with Mount Carmel and with Myron Heeger who was working with Mount Sinai.

"We were then beginning to consolidate the Reform and the Conservative (congregations, Mount Sinai Temple and Shaare Zion Synagogue, respectively), the Sunday schools, and we saw these three different operations going with the cemeteries and we said, this is ridiculous," Silverberg said. "Myron was the moving force. He said, 'We're going to get it done.' And we did. And we merged the three cemeteries even before the Sunday schools. This was the first step toward merger."

This occurred a little more than 20 years ago.

"We actually put the three together and took the three endowments. The Orthodox had a little bit. Mount Carmel had most of the money. And we sort of put all three together under one management to alleviate costs and duplication of everything," Silverberg said.

Silverberg succeeded Sam Bernstein and Myron Heeger as president of the cemetery association, but he had to give it up about two years ago. He is a financial consultant for Smith & Barney, and since he handled all of the money for the cemeteries, the firm decided he couldn't be on the board and handle the money at the same time. So now he is just an adviser to the board, with A. Frank Baron taking over as president.

The entire funeral experience has been interesting, he said, dating back to the days when he dealt strictly with Mount Carmel Cemetery which, to the uninitiated, is located on a big tract of land in back of Floyd Cemetery.

Vandalism can be a problem at most cemeteries. For some reason, young hooligans like to play in cemeteries and tip over stones.

"They think that's cute, but it's very expensive to replace them," Silverberg said.

The cemetery association, however, has come up with a novel way to safeguard its property, thanks to a deal with the Trihedron Archery Club.

The archery group needed a place to practice, and there was a lot of gully and forest land adjacent to Mount Carmel and owned by the Jewish cemetery association.

"I mean we've got probably 80 or 90 acres out there," Silverberg said. "I said, 'You guys can use this for a range, take care of it, clean it up and we won't charge you. But watch the cemetery!' And it worked out beautifully.

"They're just a lessee, but it's nice. They watch the cemetery when they're out there. That's their deal. Our deal is, 'Hey, you guys need a place to be. This is a place in town where you can be, and no one's going to bother you and no one's going to charge you.' It works out both ways."

Combining the three cemeteries under one association also proved financially rewarding. Endowments, donations and money that comes from selling burial plots are helping the association achieve its goal of caring for the cemeteries even in the unlikely event that there is no more Jewish community in Sioux City.

"My dream is to make sure that 100 years from now there's enough money to take care of all these places, or even 200 years from now," Silverberg said.

The Sioux City Jewish Cemetery Association meets three or four times a year, dealing with such issues as lawn mowing, security and other more mundane affairs.

Funerals 'a little different'

The last major meeting, came when the group hired Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel to handle Jewish funerals. And it has been a great relationship, Silverberg said.

"You have to remember in a Jewish funeral, things are a little different," he said.

Embalming is discouraged. Simplicity is the order of the day.

"The Bible says you are to leave the earth the way you came into it," Silverberg said. "You came in naked and wrapped in a towel or a sheet, and that's the way you go out basically. The body is washed, taken care of, wrapped in a burial shroud, put into a wooden casket with no metal and left to the earth. Dust to dust ... which is as close as we can get."

Burials should be done within 24 hours if at all possible. This is to avoid shaming the body by neglecting its required religious procedure. Jews believe that the dead should never be left alone. So shomrim, those who stay with and pray over the deceased, are assigned on a 24-hour basis so that the dead are never left alone without the soul being comforted by the recitation of holy prayers. If the death comes on the Sabbath, however, which is Friday night and Saturday morning, the burial can be held over until Monday.

The three different cemeteries also have basically different rules.

You must be Jewish, for instance to be buried at the Independent Farane, the Orthodox cemetery. The same applies at Mount Carmel. And this applies to converts, though they are not called converts, Silverberg noted, "because once you're Jewish, you're Jewish."

Because Mount Sinai belongs to the more liberal of the three affiliations, non-Jewish spouses of Jewish members can be buried there. "As long as one member of the family is Jewish, you can be buried there," he said. "We buried a gal who was a Muslim and who was married to a Jewish guy."

Even indigents are given the same respect and burial as their fellow Jews, with the same rites and the same wooden coffin.

"We not only give them a gravesite. We get them a headstone. But we take care of our own, if that makes any sense. It's that kind of a community.

"We use a concrete dome over the top," he said. "We don't just throw them in and say, 'OK, we can't afford a casket for you.' They get the same treatment. The dome is over the casket, but it's open on the bottom. Judaism says it must go back to the earth. As long as it's open on the bottom, it's earth to earth, dust to dust."

The dome is used to prevent the grave from falling in after the wooden caskets disintegrate.

Why the simplicity, the shroud and the wooden casket?

Jews believe that death should not be a time for displays of luxury. In death, all people are equal.

John Quinlan may be reached at (712) 293-4225 or johnquinlan@siouxcityjournal.com