Leading members of our local Jewish communities helped the Jewish Joint Burial Society (JJBS) dedicate its first ever Holocaust Memorial, located at the Woodland Cemetery, Cheshunt.
A special service was led by Rabbi Dr Jackie Tabick with readings from Rabbi Professor Deborah Kahn-Harris, Principal of Leo Baeck College, and Movement for Progressive Judaism Co-Lead Rabbi Charley Baginsky. It blended traditional memorial prayers, Yiddish songs, poetry and the writings of Holocaust survivor Rabbi Albert Friedlander OBE.
Attendees included representatives of many of the 46 Progressive, Masorti and Independent communities served by JJBS – including many located in Essex and East London – as well as the Mayor of Broxbourne Councillor Patsy Spears.
Steve Wynne, Outgoing Chair of JJBS and a member of Sukkat Shalom Reform Synagogue in Wanstead, said: “It has long been our desire for the Society to have such a memorial on our grounds, and I am pleased that we have now been able to achieve this.
“We just marked the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. This began the journey which ended with the world learning about the Shoah and stopped the further deaths of so many innocents. This memorial is for all those who died in those horrific times and for years after, their families and descendants.”
He was joined by JJBS Senior Sexton Mitzi Kalinsky and JJBS Honorary President Frank Goldson – both also members of Sukkat Shalom – and Incoming JJBS Chair Cheryl Petar of Harlow & Chelmsford Jewish Community.
The stone, created and donated by Gary Green Memorials, stands at the entrance to the Woodland Cemetery. It bears an inscription from the Book of Lamentations: “For those I weep, stream of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people.”
It is the first Holocaust memorial at a Progressive Jewish cemetery. A weeping willow will be added to the grounds in October to commemorate those murdered by Hamas in the 7 October 2023 terrorist atrocity.
The Woodland Cemetery gives people the choice to be buried in an ecologically-friendly manner with a variety of areas and options to suit the desires of individuals and their families.
It allows couples to be buried together – including Jewish people with their non-Jewish partners – in double-depth graves.
To find out more about the Woodland Cemetery, please visit www.jjbs.org.uk/cemeteries.
