Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Is Any Land Sacred?

From the Star Ledger:

Developer agrees to fix collapsed Newark graves

Jewish leaders said yesterday they have worked out an agreement with a Newark housing developer to fix collapsed graves in a 126-year-old cemetery adjacent to a South Orange Avenue construction site.

The leaders said they were satisfied with the developer's promise to finish rebuilding a retaining wall whose collapse likely caused the graves' ruin. So they won't seek a stop-work order from the city.
...
The graves drew attention from devout Jews Monday after a rabbi from the Brooklyn-based burial society Chesed Shel Emes spied fresh dirt and tumbled tombstones near the edge of Ortiz's construction site, which is at the corner of South Orange Avenue and South 19th Street. Members of the society called it a clear case of desecration, and called police, who sent a crime scene investigator. Television crews showed up, and by day's end the cemetery was crawling with people.

Late Monday, volunteers from the Chesed Shel Emes said they found bones from one of the collapsed graves, which they immediately placed back into the earth.
...
Ortiz, who started building 13 three-family homes at the site in March, said he's been dealing with the cemetery's caretaker, Sanford Epstein, from the get-go. But he promised to proceed cautiously.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Due the dead are dead. More pain... gimme a break!

6/14/2006 11:01:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Garden State Parkway runs right through an old cemetary near South Orange.

There are tombstones (and graves) 1 or 2 feet from the pavement.

I wonder how they managed to move/remove the few hundred graves when they built that highway; must have been a political mess.

6/14/2006 12:47:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They probably removed the headstones, but didnt move the bodies. Carol Anne? Go into the light!

6/14/2006 01:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"They probably removed the headstones, but didnt move the bodies. Carol Anne? Go into the light!"


LOL, that's funny.

6/14/2006 01:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The Garden State Parkway runs right through an old cemetary near South Orange."

Holy Sepulchre to be exact. The place is enormous. If you're Catholic and your family's from the Newark area, chances are you've got a relative or two somewhere in there.

6/14/2006 07:44:00 PM  

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