Friday, July 01, 2022
The Pilgrimage to Monsey
It's not often that a town's main attraction is its cemetery. However, on the eve of every Jewish month, thousands of Jews from the tri-state area (and beyond) flock to the Viznitz Cemetery in Monsey, New York, to visit the graves of the holy leaders buried there, including the Ribnitzer, Skulener, and Viznitzer rebbes. Local police direct traffic on the suburban streets surrounding the cemetery to accommodate the busloads of arriving Jews, many of whom are not even direct followers of these late Hasidic leaders. Nevertheless, the devout come to pray at the graves of these rebbes buried on American land.
Beyond the gates of the walled cemetery, there is a hubbub of activity. At the entrance stands a small building with restrooms and light refreshments: coffee, cookies, candy. A paved parking lot stretches out behind the welcome center, and the main attraction lies up ahead and to the right. The cemetery is situated on an incline; a woman collects charity at the foot of the hill next to a large sign with the customary cemeterial prayer, and the path leading up to the main gravesites—divided by a fence separating women and men, with a special designation for those of kohenitic descent (who refrain from close contact to the dead)—is flanked by tombstones on both sides.
At the graves of the rebbes, there are plastic folding chairs and prayer books, matchboxes and memorial tealights, paper and pens to write kvitlech, or notes. Large white tents are pitched in the grassy spaces, where donations are collected. The masses of men, women, and children engaged in the location's prescribed activities give the impression that this organized spiritual operation has been running smoothly for years. But it wasn't always this way.
The popularization of this cemetery in American Orthodox Jewish life is a relatively recent phenomenon. I grew up directly across the street from these burial grounds, and I have seen it evolve over the past few years from a relatively quiet resting place to an action-packed tourist attraction. The influx of visitors to this Monsey cemetery—where famous dynastic leaders, the ashes of Jews gassed and burned in Chełmno, and, more recently, Joseph Neumann, the victim of the Monsey Hanukkah stabbing attack, are interred—is demonstrative of Orthodox Jewry's deepening connection to American soil. The Jews buried here serve as a bridge between the old country and the new Jewish American world, transforming the otherwise mundane landscape into a spiritual magnet where callers find comfort in a connection that is, quite literally, closer to home.
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