At first glance, the Jewish cemetery in Lochem does not look very shabby. Nevertheless, Mayor Sebastiaan van ‘t Erve cannot suppress his shock when he hears that a dozen or so trees, which have unintentionally grown between the graves, form a serious religious obstacle.
Eduard Huisman of the Dutch-Israelite Church Association (NIK) explains it to him. “The branches and leaves of a tree hanging over a grave are like a roof connecting you to the dead.”
And that’s a problem, he says, especially for people with the surname Cohen. Cohen means ‘priest’ in Hebrew. And under Jewish law, priests—including people who go by the name Cohen—are not allowed to have contact with the dead. Because of those trees they cannot enter the Lochem cemetery.
And there are more Jewish cemeteries where overdue maintenance is causing problems. In many cases they are in worse condition than in Lochem. From this year, a pot of 2.5 million euros is available for Jewish cemeteries. Then Minister Van Engelshoven (Culture) called it ‘the largest recovery and restoration operation of Jewish heritage ever’.
Hands shortage
The Netherlands is in fact littered with small Jewish cemeteries, Bart Wallet, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Amsterdam, said on the phone. There are hardly any funerals in many places. ‘They are mainly testimonies of Jewish life that is no longer there.’
Those testimonies are forever, as Jews have eternal burial rest. “Jews, even after their death, wait until the end of time, for the Messiah to arrive,” Wallet says. In Dutch law, the eternal burial rest is guaranteed, in contrast to, for example, the Belgian one. As a result, the final resting place of a large part of the Antwerp Jews can be found in the Dutch border village of Putte.
The Holocaust minimized the Jewish community in the Netherlands. “But it inherited the legacy of a much larger community, with countless synagogues and cemeteries,” Wallet says. ‘That legacy with the maintenance of the monuments is an enormous burden.’
The majority of Dutch religious Jews live in Amsterdam-Buitenveldert and Amstelveen. Maintenance of, for example, the Jewish cemetery in Muiderberg, where most Jewish Amsterdammers are buried, is not the problem. It is the graves, such as those in Lochem, for which the Jewish community is lacking.
Of the 118 Jews in Lochem, only eighteen returned after the Second World War. Today, a few Jews still live in the Achterhoek town, says Jaap Nijstad. He is chairman of the foundation that houses in the former synagogue in Lochem.
In the province
In order to render services, in a Jewish community there must be a minyan, a group of at least ten adult males. The synagogue thus closed as a place of worship. ‘All Jewish life has disappeared here. In the province, Hitler did win the war,’ says Nijstad.
In addition to the ten unwanted trees in Lochem, some tombstones are also difficult to read, others are crooked. One even fell over. Where the Jewish community or the NIK is responsible for the condition of the cemetery, the civil community often carries out the work.
Mayor Van ‘t Erve thinks the subsidy pot is a good first step. ‘But we do have to look at how the cemeteries restore perpetually, that cannot be done without structural resources.’ Huisman also expects that the 2.5 million euros will not be enough. For the time being, there is no additional money from the government.
‘Even for a large group that never visits a synagogue, Jewish burial is very important,’ says Professor Wallet. “It’s the part of the rites of passage: birth, marriage and death.” The Jewish graves are sober, with moody dark gray stones. Visitors should not leave flowers but stones.
The austerity makes the Jewish cemetery less attractive than, for example, Catholic cemeteries. ‘Recreational visits are considered inappropriate’, says (in an outdated text) on the NIK website, visits are often only possible by appointment.
Educational Purposes
“It’s important that the peace of the dead is honored, but that doesn’t mean the cemeteries can’t be opened up for educational purposes,” Wallet said. “The burden of caring for the graves should no longer be the sole responsibility of the Jewish community, but the responsibility of society as a whole.”
The NIK now also looks at this differently, Huisman admits: ‘We do indeed want to open up the cemeteries more, they are beacons of history.’ The mayor of Lochem Van ‘t Erve: ‘We do not want the available money to be converted into two hours of lawn mowing. This can be a catalyst to make the Jewish story and history resonate better.”
Like the mayor, Huisman is thinking of guided tours for school classes, information boards or an appointment in tourist information guides. ‘It must change from a cost item into a revenue item’, says Huisman. ‘That can be done in coins, but also in emotion, education and spiritual baggage. This transcends the Jewish.’