Righting a wrong

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/07/2022 (1376 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Hebrew phrase comes to mind when Ran Ukashi, executive director of Congregation Shaarey Zedek, thinks of the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery — the final resting place for about 11,000 members of the Jewish community.

“Chesed shel emet,” which translates to charity of true, loving-kindness.

The phrase means to do a kindness for someone they can never pay back. Tending to a loved one’s grave is one example, an emotional act many members of the Winnipeg’s Jewish community do at Shaarey Zedek Cemetery.

“It’s a very holy place. It’s a very sacred place,” Ukashi said of the more-than-a-century old cemetery.

Overnight on June 28, Shaarey Zedek was the site of an act of vandalism which left about 70 headstones toppled and tipped over. Roughly a dozen headstones were damaged, Ukashi said. The vandalism was restricted to the oldest part of the cemetery, near Armstrong Avenue.

“The pain has remained. The fact that someone would do this, whatever their motivations are, be it anti-Semitic malice or just mere mischief. We hope whoever did it will think better of it in the future,” Ukashi said.

Word of the vandalism spread. One of the managers at Shaarey Zedek Cemetery reached out to Larsen’s Memorials, a family-owned headstone and gravestone service on Notre Dame Avenue, to share what had happened.

David Bohn, who runs the business with his twin brother and his sister, said the news disappointed him.

“ We were just trying to do a good deed and make everybody feel as good about it as possible…

“You wonder why people have to do such ridiculous things to other people’s property,” he said.

Bohn knew he wanted to help make things right. He and three staff members — Michael Sandell, Scott Bohn and Brett Findlater — spent an afternoon at the cemetery repositioning headstones.

They did so at no cost to the congregation.

“With the right tools, it went pretty efficiently,” Bohn said, adding that the damage wasn’t overly significant due to the fact many of the stones were older, thick and rugged.

The workers re-adhered the stones to their bases to keep them in place for decades, even centuries, to come.

“We were just trying to do a good deed and make everybody feel as good about it as possible in the end,” Bohn said.

This community-minded effort is why the staff at Larsen’s Memorials are the Free Press Community Review’s Local Heroes for the month of July.

Ukashi said he’s thankful for the workers’ time and effort.

“Now, we’re just completing the surveying of the damage. There hasn’t been too, too much, fortunately.”

Ukashi said this incident is far from unheard of in the Jewish community, both in Winnipeg and across the world. He hopes events like this can be left in the past. Ukashi encourages anyone with tips regarding the vandalism — no matter how small the detail may be — to contact the police.

“The synagogue is very grateful for all of the support we received from both the Jewish and the general community. It’s been very heartwarming to see a lot of people sending us support and condemning the action,” Ukashi said.

“It means a lot, more than they know.”