The Group Restoring Historic Jewish Cemeteries in New Jersey for the Past Two Decades

In 2005, Mona Shangold visited her parent’s gravesite in Perth Amboy and discovered first-hand a problem that is becoming more widespread — the neglect of many historic Jewish cemeteries.

“I recognized that funding was probably an issue,” Shangold said. “I also recognized that the problem was likely to persist and worsen — since the synagogue’s membership and Perth Amboy’s Jewish population had increased in age and decreased in numbers.”

As historic Jewish enclaves migrate and many congregations that manage cemeteries close, the task of restoring the cemeteries often falls on family members who may be unaware that century-old headstones need generational upkeep.

Knowing the importance of cemeteries to the community — as troves of historical information — she decided to found a charity in 2005 called Friends of New Jersey Cemeteries dedicated to restoring the cemeteries and reconnecting the Jewish community to their ancestors.

Her organization is now in its 20th year and has spent more than $300,000 on restoring historic cemeteries in Perth Amboy and Woodbridge, along with helping others in New Jersey. There are more projects on the way, including resurfacing the interior walkways of the Hebrew Fraternity Cemetery.

“The history of the community is these cemeteries,” said Shangold, who moved away from her hometown Perth Amboy in 1964 to attend college. “Most of us become interested in our genealogy when we get older at a time when, unfortunately, the people who could have answered all the questions are no longer here.”

Shangold’s parents are buried in Hebrew Fraternity Cemetery, which is one of the oldest of Perth Amboy’s Jewish cemeteries dating to 1894. It was originally run by a mutual aid society, a kind of organization common among Jews at the turn of the last century that helped new immigrants get settled into their new land. The ownership was transferred to Congregation Shaarey Tefiloh, which had their own cemeteries dating to 1917 that still exist on Bingle Street and Florida Grove Avenue in Perth Amboy. There are seven additional Jewish cemeteries nearby.

Shangold’s mission originally concerned itself with these cemeteries. However, after discovering her charity’s mission, other New Jersey residents began alerting her to other cemeteries and she now organizes tours and assists the descendants of the people buried there in locating the headstones of family members. Each year, Shangold leads tours in five different towns and cities across the state.

“There are some people that just want to visit their family’s graves and want me to help them find them,” Shangold said. “But others want to know more about the history of the community.”

On a recent tour, Shangold showed me her family’s headstones and then pointed out other founding members of the city’s Jewish community, including Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of Shaarey Tefiloh, who descended from the well-known 18th-century Yiddish scholar named Vilna Gaon. Others notable community members buried there are mentioned in a hardcover book called Perth Amboy’s Jewish Community that her organization published in 2012.

Sadly, Jewish cemeteries often fall prey to vandalism. One of the worst cases of vandalism is the Grove Street Cemetery in Newark.

It is true that vandalism struck the Perth Amboy cemeteries. However, the majority of the problems come from neglect and nature. The winding roots of large red oaks that populate the Hebrew Fraternity Cemetery can destabilize headstones causing them to topple, which in turn, can topple others nearby.

Many of the original donors to Shangold’s charity later realized that they had a personal stake in the city’s aging burial grounds. Marcia Stern, now 80, was one of the people that Shangold reconnected to her roots. A former resident of Perth Amboy, Stern now lives in Briarcliff Manor, NY. Shangold’s tours have given Stern an occasion to visit her family’s cemetery for the past eight years.

“Few of us came back to Perth Amboy, which is one of the reasons the cemeteries were in disrepair,” said Stern, who left town in 1962 to attend Barnard College.

Although Stern knew where her parents are both buried, Shangold has helped her find the resting places of five other relatives.

“There was a family legend that my father’s brother lied about his age to enlist in the army during World War I— and went off to fight and died in France,” Stern said.

In the Hebrew Fraternity Cemetery, a headstone etched with the name of Private Benjamin Weinstein, who was 14 years old when he died overseas during the Great War, can be found. Since joining the tours, Stern has discovered the graves of people who played meaningful roles in her childhood — schoolteachers, doctors, even Harold “Hecky” Plain, a director at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association who taught her to swim.

“As you walk through the cemetery, it’s like reliving your life,” Stern, who has been attending the tours for the last eight years. “It has reconnected me with a lot of people I knew growing up.”