This Is Lower Merion And Narberth
Serving the Main Line Community
Jewish Cemetery In Gladwyne Has A Storied Past
By Neil Sukonik
President, Friends of Har Hasedim
The Story of Har Hasetim Cemetery in Gladwyne, PA is the story of Eastern European immigration (for example, from the Pale of Settlement) during the late 1800’s in order to avoid religious persecution such as The Progroms. The creation and availability of commercial steam ships created increased access to transportation and allowed greater opportunity to immigrate to America. On average, those buried at Har Hasetim lived less than ten years in America. They settled mainly in South Philadelphia and worked as laborers or in sweat shops. Their stories are kept alive by the history and future of Har Hasetim.
During that time period, Gladwyne was a very different place than the high-end residential area it is now. It was known as a mill town, with paper, grist, saw and textile mills dotting the major creek running through Lower Merion Township, aptly named Mill Creek. In 1893, a major flood destroyed almost all of the mills.
That same year, the Har Hasetim Association, through one of its founders William Silverstone, purchased an approximately 19 acre hillside from Charles Greaves in order to establish a Jewish cemetery a few hundred yards uphill from the tenement housing that existed along Mill Creek. Har Hasetim Association sold sections of plots to a number of beneficial societies who in turn sold them to their members in order to provide them with an inexpensive yet proper burial in accordance with Jewish customs of the time. No perpetual care was offered.
Deed records show at least thirteen different benevolent and burial societies acquired plots in Har Hasetim.
Chevra Kadisa, or beneficial societies established specifically for funeral rituals based on K’vod Hamet, which ordains the purification of the body and its proper burial, were responsible for arranging the funeral, gathering the minyan (group of ten males) to recite kaddish (prayer of the deceased) and supervising the shivah (period of mourning) for its members who, as recent immigrants, often lacked extended family members. Independent Chevra Kadisho (ICK) was chartered as one of these societies in 1895.
Har Hasetim (Mount of Olives) was twelve miles from center city Philadelphia and was accessible by taking the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad to the since closed Rose Glen Station on River Road in Gladwyne and then traversing the last mile by horse and buggy uphill to the cemetery. Once Rose Glen station closed, a train ride to Ardmore and then a few mile trek through the Mill Creek valley to the cemetery remained an alternative. The cemetery was designed by architect William Harry McCollin and is the first and only cemetery he designed.
By October, 1893, interments began.
Hundreds of burials occurred annually for close to a decade. Death certificates from Philadelphia list approximately 3000 names of those interred at Har Hasetim. However, starting in June 1902, interments dropped off dramatically. A trustee of ICK, Julius Moskowitz, had opened Har Jehuda cemetery in Upper Darby that was more convenient to access and included perpetual care. Julius Moskowitz eventually became president of both ICK and Har Hasetim and controlled both cemeteries.
By 1911, the drop off in burials created a lack of funds for Har Hasetim to pay its debts causing it to file bankruptcy on sixteen of the nineteen acres.
The other three acres were contained on a separate parcel, and were not encumbered by the debt. In 1913 the bankruptcy eventually resulted in Horace Moore purchasing the sixteen acres. After much negotiation, he sold three of the acres to ICK and started a stone quarry on the uppermost acreage of the remaining sixteen acres. In the process, articles note that he stated he would disinter graves located in that upper area to make way for the quarry if the sale did not happen. Remnants of the quarry still exist.
In 1953, the sixteen acres surrounding the cemetery were purchased and developed into a residential subdivision known as Castle Hill. The cemetery was now surrounded by single family homes with only marginal access to it through two rights-of-way that remained. By then, the last known caretaker of the cemetery, Louis Uranson of Righters Mill Road in Gladwyne, had passed away. Nobody took over maintenance of the cemetery and Har Hasetim began to fall into disrepair. From the mid-1940’s until recently, the property sat abandoned and virtually forgotten.
In 1989, a descendant of Julius Moskowitz, Ann Moskowitz, sold the remaining six acres of the cemetery to a developer who submitted a subdivision plan for single family homes on the property. Ms. Moskowitz planned on disinterring all of the remaining bodies and moving them to her family owned Har Jehuda cemetery to make way for the development.
Over the next decade, neighbors and local religious institutions fought this plan through litigation, eventually resulting in a 1997 Stipulation Agreement signed by the various parties to the litigation and codified by Judge Stanley Ott in Montgomery County Orphans Court. The bodies would not be disinterred and Beth David Reform Congregation would take deed ownership of the six acres. Har Hasetim was saved from destruction, those interred would be able to rest in peace where intended, and the property would remain as a memorial cemetery with no new burials.
Joe Ferrannini of Gravestone Matters talks about “conservation” at Har Hasetim, historic cemetery in Gladwyne
Due to the decades of neglect, Har Hasetim had become an unruly, overgrown property almost impossible to navigate. Numerous headstones had fallen or broken and iron fences had rusted, collapsed or had been damaged along with the headstones by trees that had sprouted out of the formerly open hillside. After a number of years, Beth David Reform Congregation recognized that the effort to restore dignity to those interred at Har Hasetim while recognizing the historic and natural significance of the property was a community-wide task much too large for one single institution.
Neil Sukonik talks to “the fence guy.”
In 2011, the Friends of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery was formed as a tax exempt non-profit entity to manage and restore the cemetery. Composed of numerous Jewish and non-Jewish private citizens and local institutions, the Friends set upon a course to create a gem out of this diamond in the rough. To this end, a Master Plan for the overall effort prepared by The Land Health Institute was competed in 2015 and a follow up Landscape Plan prepared by TEND Landscapes was completed in 2017. Much progress has been made at the property through the hard work, physical labor and strategic planning of members of the Friends and outside volunteers. Paths have been established to access all crucial areas. Much of the invasive plants and overgrowth have been cleaned up. The limited access to the property is being addressed. An effort to restore damaged headstones has begun. And, a database of grave locations, a listing of those interred at Har Hasetim, and a history of both the site and those interred is well underway.
Much of what has been accomplished so far has occurred due to the efforts and funding of a limited but dedicated group of people and institutions. Ahead for the Friends is the next chapter of the effort to create a beautiful, soulful, and peaceful nature preserve at the site while also preserving the historic and religious significance of the property as a memorial cemetery. The Friends looks forward to the additional interest and assistance of all who value the area’s important history as well as the ability to create a rare and special natural haven for all to enjoy at the cemetery.
Visit Har Hasatim’s Website to get more information as well as how to get involved and support the important, transformative effort at Har Hasetim.