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Cemeteries Get Creative to Offset
Dwindling Business
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
“ We might be a cemetery, but
our social life isn’t dead,” reads
the description of the Friends of
Laurel Hill Facebook page.

At first, the morbid tagline sounds
like a joke, but if you were to show
up at Bala Cynwyd’s Laurel Hill West
cemetery on a Friday evening, you may
find a smattering of people sitting on
the grass enjoying a film for a Cinema
in the Cemetery event. Once a year,
you could stumble upon the Market of
the Macabre at Laurel Hill East, with
dozens of vendors selling their wares.

The Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd
cemetery, founded in 1836 and home to
the predominantly Jewish Laurel Hill
West section, has gotten creative with
its programming as a way to keep the
cemetery gates open.

Its business model is a solution to a
common problem among cemeteries,
especially Jewish ones. As cemeter-
ies bury fewer people and run out of
funds to maintain their grounds, they
must find alternative ways to generate
revenue. Some Philadelphia Jewish cemeteries
are “in deep doo-doo,” worries Harry
Neel, consumer service council for the
Pennsylvania Cemetery Cremation and
Funeral Association.

Jewish cemeteries are old, and many
predate endowment care laws, which
mandate that cemeteries set aside
funds into a trust fund; around 15%
of profits from each grave must go into
the fund, providing a safety net for the
cemetery’s longevity.

In North Philadelphia, home of
many Jewish cemeteries in the area,
the neighborhoods have changed since
the cemeteries opened, with fewer Jews
living in that part of the city. Younger
people have different values than the
older generation, wanting to bury their
loved ones in a nondenominational
cemetery, Neel posited. Others may not
pay for long-term care of the grave.

Lack of proper funds is what leads to
a lack of maintenance: broken grave-
stones, overgrown grass and uneven
land. “Someday, when you’re out of land,
when you have no burials to make
anymore — no land to sell, no burials
to make, no markers to sell, no any-
thing — what’s going to cut the grass?”
Neel said.

Some Jewish cemeteries are turning
to help from organizations, such as
Friends of Jewish Cemeteries, a Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia spe-
cial initiative that, with community
funding, has pilot projects to repair
graves at Har Nebo and Har Yehuda
cemeteries. Though the scope of the project is
limited in how much of a cemetery
it can repair, it provides exposure to
a widespread problem to the greater
community. “It allows us to see tangible results
that are building awareness and visibil-
ity, that all of us can make a difference,
that all of us can change the tide of
despair,” FJC leader Rich Blumberg said.

Laurel Hill’s roster of programming
was designed for a similar purpose.

Cemeteries were, at their founding,
made to be beautiful to attract the
attention of individuals for potential
business. “Generating revenue is nothing new,”
Laurel Hill President and CEO Nancy
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8 JULY 21, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



Laurel Hill guests at the cemetery’s Cinema in the Cemetery movie night
PAYING IT FORWARD
Spreading Muss Magic to more families
B Laurel Hill visitors attend Market of the Macabre
Courtesy of Friends of Laurel Hill Facebook page
Goldenberg said. “From the get-go of
the creation of cemeteries, they were
money-making businesses.”
Laurel Hill is no exception. Cemetery
founder John J. Smith bought several
lots of land next to the Schuylkill and
later, in Bala Cynwyd.

“Th ey were always meant to be
beautiful, open spaces,” Goldenberg
said. “Cemeteries are the precursors
of parks. Th ere were no parks in 1836.

Th ere was no art museum in 1836.

Th ere was no public sculpture in 1836.”
Th ough Laurel Hill thrived for over a
century as a bucolic respite in the city,
it, along with other urban cemeteries,
suff ered in the 1960s and ‘70s, due to
the disinvestment from cities because
of rising economic and racial tensions.

In 1978, historian John Francis
Marion and a small cohort he assem-
bled began giving historic tours of
cemeteries, pointing out historical fi g-
ures buried at the cemetery, to generate
revenue. Th e tour group was the begin-
ning of Friends of Laurel Hill.

Th is month, Laurel Hill opened
Makom Shalom, a new section of
Laurel Hill West, which will contain
906 graves across three acres. It’s a
testament to the cemetery’s fi nancial
health, Goldenberg said. Laurel Hill
continues to off er book clubs, cemetery
tours and performances to visitors.

However, with more creative pro-
gramming, though it helps attract a
wider audience, Laurel Hill must still
honor its roots as a place of grieving,
maintaining a balance between fun
activities and respect for the dead.

Goldenberg believes that fi nding a
way to keep business alive will keep
graves maintained and welcoming
to loved ones, the cemetery’s highest
priority. “Our industry is a business.

Businesses have to generate revenue,”
Goldenberg said. “If we don’t, we’re not
able to maintain the graves of those
who are buried here, and we’re not able
to uphold the commitment that we
promised to our families.” JE
art Mellits and Barbra Berley-Mellits saw each of their
three children return from Alexander Muss High School
in Israel more mature, more secure in their Jewish
identity, more connected to Israel, and remarkably prepared
for independent college life. Now as new grandparents, they
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The Mellitses also value the opportunity for young people
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New to legacy planning, a Jewish National Fund Donor
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To learn more about the many
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srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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