History Department

Editor's Note: Each summer the Institute, in conjunction with the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi, undertakes a cemetery restoration project in the region. The yearly effort is part of the Institute's historic preservation initiative. This year, under the direction of the Museum summer intern Diana Kogan and Jacobs Camp Chaverim unit head Roie Engel, thirty-two teenagers supplemented ongoing work by Congregation Gates of Prayer at Osyka, Mississippi. The following is Diana's record of her experience.

My first impressions of the Osyka cemetery were somewhat partial. I was told that the cemetery looked really bad and would take a lot of work to fix up. Some highlights were a dead tree in the middle of the cemetery grounds, a plethora of weeds of all sizes and varieties, and, most problematic, a brick wall surrounding the burial grounds that had almost completely fallen down. It was decided that the Chaverim campers would not actually rebuild the wall, but they would take all the crumbling bricks and stack them carefully in piles out of the way. At this point I had not yet seen the cemetery.

After breakfast one sunny morning, Jacobs Camp Director Jonathan Cohen, Roie and I went to look at the cemetery. We drove an hour and a half, and just over the Mississippi-Louisiana border we pulled off on a little gravel road. What I saw was a beautifully maintained cemetery, not at all what I had expected to find. This, I was told, was the Catholic cemetery. Since there was no path leading to the Jewish cemetery, I had to walk through the grass. I promptly stepped into a fire ant hill, my very first experience with these nasty little insects. It was immediately decided that the campers would wear pants and proper shoes when they came to Osyka!

The cemetery was completely different than my synagogue cemetery. Instead of shiny new headstones, stones aged with time stood on these graves. There was a sense of history here that I had never felt in the modern cemeteries I had visited. I felt a connection with generations of the past, but it was painful to see the awful condition of the cemetery. The people buried here had spent their lives working hard, loving, bringing up families, never expecting or imagining that no one would be left to take care of their graves and preserve their memories. It made me stop and think and realize that I would not want this to happen to me. This project held a whole new meaning for me when I felt this connection. The clean-up effort would be great for the campers not only for teaching them to appreciate history but also for making them understand that they are responsible for continuing the traditions and history of Judaism. When they saw this cemetery with their own eyes, I was sure that they understood their responsibility to future generations.

The actual trip with the Chaverim began just after breakfast at 5:30 AM. The campers, at least some of them, were amazingly chipper for such an early hour. When we got to Osyka and saw the Catholic cemetery first, they could not understand why they were needed. We got all the tools off the bus and and went to take a look at the Jewish section. The kids were not daunted when I described the work ahead of us. In fact, they were enthusiastic and began right away. Half of them worked on weeding. The gardening tools we brought were very popular! The other half began removing fallen bricks from the cemetery and stacking them neatly. It was very hot and humid, but they kept working hard. Within just a few hours, they had mad a visible difference. Three giant stacks of bricks had formed, and the weeds were almost completely gone. The kids finished all of the work hours earlier than I had planned. Before we left we took a group photo, but more importantly, we stood in a circle and said the Kaddish for all the people buried here. Throughout the morning, campers asked me questions about the people buried here and the symbols on their gravestones. I heard several gasps from campers who were shocked to learn that many Jews had died in 1878 from a yellow fever epidemic, a disease virtually unknown in the U.S. today.

The work done by the Chaverim at Osyka is very impressive, as the before-and-after photos will attest. I hope young people from Jacobs Camp or temple youth groups will continue coming to maintain the conditions that they achieved on this trip. It seems to me that one or two days out of the year is not much to ask. It is not right that abandoned Jewish cemeteries, and the memories of our ancestors, fade and waste away. We must care for these graves so that people do not wonder why Osyka's Catholic cemetery is lovingly maintained while the Jewish section is dilapidated.