Old Jewish Cemetery on Mexico Border.

manhattanmom ↓

Thu, Nov 20 2008, 10:13 pm

I wasn't sure where exactly to post this topic--I'm not really asking a halachic shailah--although I'm sure it's going to bring up some interesting points--
Here goes:

I have an uncle (father's brother--not frum, totally unafilliated) who lives in Nevada. He b"ah is quite successful financially after building himself up in several businesses--mainly real estate. He buys and sells empty plots of land out west (think like Wild, Wild West ghost towns...)
Anyhow, about 8 years ago he bought a property on a tax lean. He paid only $2,000 and has been making nice interest on the property. The property is located in Cochise County Arizona. A few weeks ago he got a call from the realtor (that although he had forgotten about this purchase...)it was now officially his. He went down to see it today. And guess what?!! It's not a totally abandoned field!! It's the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish Cemetery. The oldest Jewish Cemetery in the state of Arizona. No Joke!! Anyhow, the cemetery is located in Cochise County, Arizona and it is about 100 yards from the Mexican border. There are 19 kevarim--but only 13 matzeivos. The property has been vandalized but has been restored in 1992--then vandalized again (we got all this information after googling the cemetery. We also got lists of the people buried there and remaining living family members.)
So now, my uncle called us and asked what he could do with the property--the realtor said he should just uproot it--it's in really bad shape. We told him he absolutely can't uproot it--he won't do that--don't worry.
So this whole thing is kind of cool--but now we're looking for things to do about it--like should we publicize it and raise money to restore it?, etc.
I'm not looking for suggestions here, really--just want to share my interesting family story of the day!

↑ manhattanmom

Fri, Nov 21 2008, 10:46 am

bonitag1 wrote:

Here's a suggestion. Go to jewishgen.org and add this cemetery to their database of burials, JOWBR, so that descendants of the people buried there can locate the graves.http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/

After spending much of last night researching the cemetery--mostly for fun! It is registered. The Jewish Historical society has record of it and of all the people buried in it. We also found lots of information about the town in general--like in 1911 there were 100 people living there!! (not only jews--100 residents!)
Some of the people buried there lived in Mexico but needed a Jewish burial.
It's a bit strange how it ended up in my uncle's hands--especially since he had no idea about it being a Jewish cemetery. Somebody stopped paying maintenance/taxes about 8 years ago--Now my family feels a bit of an obligation to do something. We're just not sure what. We're nervous about restoring it as the last time it was restored in 1993, the gate was torn down when it was vandalized due to "border traffic"--all the people from mexico sneaking into arizona.
I have some great pictures. (mostly of a few matzeivos in between overgrown cacti) Maybe I'll post some!