I came to Mt. Hebron when I was just starting to visit historic cemeteries decades ago. Founded in…read more1903, it's considered the Jewish section of Cedar Grove Cemetery, but my memory is that Mt Hebron was much larger, much more impressive visually and with a serene, stately aura about it. I came in the days before Find a Grave. I was motivated by an old copy of Life magazine I had bought, from March 1944. They had a photo inside of the burial of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, who had been executed at Sing Sing. Mourners are clustered about the gravesite, but in the background, I could see the remnants of the 1939 World's Fair. With a friend, I drove and navigated my way through Queens (not my favorite borough), and, arriving at the cemetery and using the magazine as a guide, eventually found Lepke's final resting place. We took our photos and explored the rest of the cemetery.
Lepke was a fascinating figure. From a poor but respectable family, Lepke chose crime as his life's profession and, paraphrasing the words of historian Albert Fried, rebelled against authority at the same time he embraced it. He ran the infamous Murder Inc. with Mafia boss Albert Anastasia and was responsible for much savagery and many murders.
(An interesting book is "Pacifist" by Donald Wetzel. During World War II, Wetzel was a conscientious objector and for a time was jailed with Lepke in NYC. Although a gentile, Lepke thought Wetzel was a Jew and began to act almost as a surrogate father to him. Often, Lepke castigated him for his pacifism. Wetzel would later write, "Finally, my patience gone, I interrupted, 'What kind of a Jew am I? No, Louis, you know what kind of Jew I am. What kind of a godd**n Jew are you?' He jerked his head back, his eyes brightened with surprise, and then, remarkably, he smiled. Far from outraging him, something about my angry challenge strangely pleased him. That I'd had the guts for it perhaps." When Wetzel is transferred upstate, "I reached for and found Lepke's outstretched hand, seeing, with absolute disbelief, his face contorted like a child's, Lepke crying, his voice a hoarse whisper, his last word to me, 'Shalom.'")
In driving around the cemetery, we saw a mausoleum with the name "Streisand" on it. Barbra's relatives? I assume so.
Since Find a Grave, I realize that among the honorable citizens buried here are notable actors, musicians, photojournalists, politicians. Also, other notorious criminals I was chagrined to learn I had overlooked. Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein, a Murder Inc. killer also executed at Sing Sing; Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, a Murder Inc. killer who was part of the death squad that dispatched Dutch Schultz in Newark in 1935 and also died in Sing Sing's electric chair; Irving Wexler aka Waxey Gordon, a Prohibition kingpin; and Abe Landau, a Dutch Schultz bodyguard who was shot down with his boss.
To Mt. Hebron's credit, they don't shy away from that unsavory history. If you visit their cutting-edge website, they offer walking tours such as the Murder Inc. mob tour, the Composer's Encore Tour, the Holocaust Memorial Tour, and the Yiddish Walk of Fame Tour.
A beautiful cemetery rich in NYC's history and tradition, it comes highly recommended. I just wish Queens was an easier borough to get to and navigate. It has some of the best, most historic and beautiful cemeteries in NY.