ShalomNewYork.com

Photo: NYtimes” Rabbi Shmuel Plafker at a funeral service for Jeffrey Lynn Schneider at a plot owned by the Hebrew Free Burial Association on Staten Island. Mr. Schneider, 54, committed suicide a week ago in Midwood, Brooklyn. ”
“It was a perfect early spring day: acres of blue sky, the lightest of breezes moving past the graves of Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. Here, 55,000 Jews are buried in plots owned by the Hebrew Free Burial Association. These are the graves of the poor, which, under Judaic law, do not differ from those of the rich. The ritual of burial is a rope across time: families who lived a century ago at 108 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side — now known as the Tenement Museum — are buried at Mount Richmond. The maternal grandparents of Mel Brooks are down one row. In another corner are 23 of the girls and boys who were killed in the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in 1911. ” more@NYTimes.com