This Year's Visit to the Riverside Cemetery

We began our visit with the wonderful brunch that Dale arranged.

We had our annual congregational visit to the Riverside Cemetery this year on June 23rd. We figure that this    must  have been our twelfth or thirteenth annual outing to the Riverside Cemetery. Under the very able leadership of Dale Brown (who prepared a magnificent brunch for us), we recited Kel Male Rachamim, weeded the graves that needed attention, and in general straightened up the Chevra Talmud Torah Anshei Marovi section of the Riverside Cemetery. We also took photographs of every gravestone in our section which we hope to upload to JewishGen for the benefit of geneaologists as well as members of our community. Although I did not grow up in Old Broadway, three of the four of my great grandparents who came to the United States are buried in the Riverside Cemetery (in different sections - the Phoenix Association and the Hebrew Free Burial Society of Passaic). It has been always easy to find the graves of my mother's paternal grandparent, Lewis and Gussie Moss. This time, I also tried to find the grave of my mother's maternal grandfather, Samuel Kalman Pitnikoff. Since this was a section for the indigent, there were a number of small, marble headstones perhaps two feet high by a foot wide. These stones, as well as some of the larger ones, were covered over with dense ivy. Since they date from the teens, whatever engraving

Dale Brown

had been on the stone, or perhaps paint, had long since worn away. There were also many stones that had probably fallen over with time and were lying horizontal in the ground. Although my son, Binyamin, and I tried assiduously to find the grave of my great-grandfather, we did not have any luck. I hope to try again the near future, although I expect that best I will be able to do us to find one of the small, worn stones. I note all of this to underscore how fortunate the Old Broadway Synagogue is to have Dale Brown, who had made sure that those of our shul who have passed from this world are not forgotten.

Here is the gang - ready to perform a "chesed shel emes."

Rhonda was a big help!

As was Yosef Meir

Rachel was too!

Igor hard at work

Seth tending to one of the graves

Binyamin M. tending to the graves

Chana and Binyamin R at the grave of their great-great  grandfather, Lewis Moss.