Effort to restore an old Jewish cemetery

For decades, the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery was a final resting place where peace was elusive.

Years of neglect, a lingering lawsuit, and the threat of development marked the hidden graveyard just off Conshohocken State Road.

But a new plan by a nearby synagogue could be a turning point in the history of a cemetery that dates to the 1890s. Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne is leading the effort to preserve and transform a tract supporters say is more than just a burial ground.

"I think it's amazing," said Lawrence Borow, 71. "And it's not just because I want to preserve the resting place of my great-grandparents. It's because this is part of the history of the area."

The six-acre plot, where an estimated 1,000 Jews are buried, is a tangle of brush, weeds, and fallen branches. Wild growth surrounds the graves and markers, some upright, others toppled and broken.

The three-year-old Friends of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery, which is affiliated with the synagogue but includes people who are not, has commissioned a plan to clean up the cemetery and restore the graves and headstones, while preserving the plants and trees that are now the natural habitat.

The group envisions trails and contemplative spaces, and wants to research the histories of those buried at the cemetery. Digital mapping technology may be incorporated so that visitors can pick a gravestone and use a mobile device to discover the background of the person beneath it.

The transformation will cost more than $1 million, according to the group, which is developing a fund-raising plan.

"We want to tell the story of the cemetery," said Stephen Anderer of Wynnewood, a board member. "It's the story of Jewish immigration at the turn of the century, particularly poor Jewish immigrants. This is a beautiful place to tell that story."

In the late 1800s, a group of Jewish immigrants organized the Har Hasetim Association and the Independent Chevra Kadisho (ICK) of Philadelphia, burial societies formed to ensure that their members, as well as poor Jews, would have a final resting place.

Both groups purchased portions of the cemetery, but oversight eventually fell to the ICK.

Over the years, residents who purchased plots were buried on the land. Among them were three of Borow's great-grandparents: Louis Borow, a bookbinder, and Harris and Sarah Adelman, who died during the 1918 flu pandemic shortly after arriving in America.

Borow visited the graves in the 1950s with his father. Even then the site was in "dismal shape," said Borow, whose son Todd has joined the board of the group to help in the preservation effort.

The last burial at the cemetery was in 1945, of Seaman Second Class Benjamin Schurr, who died in Germany during World War II.

Eventually, the cemetery was forsaken as other burial grounds became available. The descendants of Julius Moskowitz, a trustee of the ICK who had assumed management of the cemetery, were unable to keep it up.

In the 1980s, the family attempted to sell it to a developer who planned to dig up the graves and develop the land. The bodies were to be moved to Har Jehuda, a Jewish cemetery in Upper Darby.

"I got a call from a neighbor who said, there's a bulldozer at the cemetery and they are going to bulldoze the graves," said Richard Elkman, who created the Committee to Save the Gladwyne Jewish Cemetery. The neighbor "was out there with a shotgun to hold them off."

That began what would be a 10-year battle to fight off the sale and development of the property.

Elkman and Borow, and eventually the synagogue, were among petitioners who filed a legal challenge to the sale and development plans.Protesters argued that moving the bodies violated traditional Jewish law.

In 1999, Montgomery County Orphans' Court approved a settlement. All parties agreed that oversight of the cemetery would be turned over to the synagogue.

Since then, Beth David has organized cleanup days to keep growth at bay and access open. But the group eventually organized a more formal effort when the Friends of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery was founded in 2011. Plans to transform the cemetery then began.

The group hired the Land Health Institute in Philadelphia to develop a plan. Craig Bailey, an associate professor of history at Villanova University, is researching the history of the people buried at the cemetery.

In December, Bailey presented some of his findings. A year earlier, the synagogue had hosted a day when participants dressed in period costume and took on the roles of people buried in the cemetery.

Todd Borow, a lawyer, dressed as his great-grandfather and presented his history.

"I'm very excited to see a plan taking shape to restore the cemetery," he said. "[We hope to] bring back some of the dignity to the graves of all the people buried there."