As a little girl, Janet and her grandmother took street car rides to the Lansing Cemetery in Cleveland where they cleaned the graves and maintained the surroundings, ensuring the dignity of the departed. Janet Ghiandoni grew up in Cleveland Heights and visited Lansing with her grandmother several times a year. She distinctly remembers visiting the graves of many relatives she hardly knew anything about.

Imagine how dispiriting it would be to visit the grave of a relative only to find the gravestone toppled and engulfed in grass so tall that the name on the stone is barely legible.

Many of Cleveland’s older Jewish cemeteries are located in areas where the Jewish community no longer lives and synagogues no longer exist. Without an organized effort, these cemeteries have fallen into disrepair and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland has stepped in to help. With unanimous Board approval, the 112 year old non-profit organization has launched a Cemetery Preservation Campaign with the goal of raising $3.5 million to honor the deceased.

When I first came to work at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland more than 25 years ago, I was given a daunting task: managing the care and preservation of our community’s Jewish cemeteries. Even though I have lived in Cleveland my entire life, it was not until I began my work at the Federation that I heard others mentioning local cemeteries that I never knew about. I later realized that many of our older Jewish cemeteries depict the history and movement of our community.

An inter-generational program, this year’s attendance topped previous years with over 200 volunteers of all ages including two busloads of students.

We applaud Dan Brown for honoring our ancestors through his commitment to cemetery preservation in Jewish Cleveland!