Pittsburgh Shaimos Buried Near Civil War Era Jewish Cemetery
by CrownHeights.info
Just down the hill from one of the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery, a new grave was dug this week and thousands of pounds of Shaimos buried according to Jewish tradition.
Rabbi Eli Wilansky, a Rabbi at Bnai Emunoh Chabad-Greenfield, made their annual collection of Shaimos from across the Pittsburgh area over this past month, filling a U-Haul truck with 242 boxes of Jewish texts, sefarim, and other holy items. Then they went to bury them.
“I honestly always assumed my shaimos went straight to the trash,” one community member wrote to Rabbi Wilansky. “That is super satisfying to watch.”
Rabbi Wilansky, along with Mr. Ivan Engel and Yomin Kreeger, unloaded the boxes and prepared the burial spot under the baking sun Wednesday, completing the work and filling the burial spot to compacity.
Once completed, Rabbi Wilansky visited another cemetery just up the hill from where they had just buried the Shaimos. The Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery of Pittsburgh.
One of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the country, the Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery was founded in 1853, just prior to the Civil War, with the oldest tombstone found showing the date of 1881.
Sorry
Sorry, but doesn’t look like it’s really being done with proper respect…
SH
some of these seforim (chayenu) contain Hashem’s name….
Ploni Ben Ploni
Way to go Yomin! What a Mitzva.
Yankel
Yasher Koach.
Not everything has to be mefursam. We live in a world where there are those who want to nitpick at everything. So what may sound zeyer shein to you, could sound like a nisht azoy gut to someone else. For those with a bissel sechel, you may notice certain key words in the story that can trigger those that loved to be triggered.
Yasher koach for helping in tzorchei tzibbur!
Yanke
Ed Greenberg
I once brought three boxes of Shaimos to the local Jewish funeral home, south of San Francisco. I was told where a closet with a handtruck was, and invited to bring my materials in. I brought in three boxes, but started looking through the other discards. So I left them three boxes, but brought home four more.