Guest speakers from "Hareshet" (the Network), an organization started by Hanoar Haoved, our sister movement, that assists youth workers attempting to unionize or fight abusive workplace practices.
Our final tekkes, with Hannah Weintraub in the center explaining what the seminar meant to her.
Making new friends!
Workshop 63 planned Kabbalat Shabbat for everyone. Here, Sara invited a representative from each country to join her in lighting Shabbat candles.
Sandy
Simon, New York 1989
Any
time is a bad time to be digging in a cemetery, but digging at dusk just may be
the worst. As the shadows stretch out, any noise becomes ominous. The two
Habonim members standing in a pit in Queens tried to ignore their jitters. We
had only three more feet to go, and then we could lie down, try the grave out
for size and head home. We always lay down to try out our work for size – it
was our way of showing the spooks we weren't afraid. Two shovels more. And then
the ground kicked back. A foot protruded up from the earth - or more precisely, a leg. Just a leg. A
single, truncated leg.
It
was the spring of 1973, and the contract between the New York Metropolitan cemetery owners and Local 365 of the Cemetery Workers and Greens Attendants' Union had expired a few months earlier. Work stoppages aren't' usually considered a viable option for cemetery workers; the footage on the evening news of anguisheing of 1973, and the contract between the New York metropolitan
cemetery owners and d families standing around an unburied coffin does not engender
public support for the workers' demands. This is especially true in New York,
with its large Jewish population. In accordance with biblical injunction,
traditional Jewish law dictates that burial must take place within twenty-four
hours of death, or a day or two on the outside.
And
so, the cemetery workers issued an ultimatum and waited for the owners to come
to the negotiating table. Deadlines were replaced by more deadlines, but
without the power of a strike, there was no pressure and thus no talks.
After
a few months of deadlock, a strike was called. I don’t' remember whether the union actually voted to stroke, or
whether the walkout was simply ordered by the union's enduring president, Sam
Cimaglia. I do remember the television news clips showing the last
gravediggers' strike. And they showed members of Betar and the Jewish Defense
League leading "strike teams" to the cemeteries. For a
not-so-modest-fee, they would strike a blow against what they called
anti-Semitism by striking physical blows against the cemetery workers. After
that, they would bury the coffins of the Jewish dead.
As
a member of Habonim, I had been sensitized to the needs and rights of workers,
including the right to strike; I had equally learned of the right of all people
freely to follow their religious persuasions. As a teenager, I firmly believed
there was a simple solution to every problem, no matter how intractable it
seemed. As merakez eizor, New York regional director of Habonim Labour Zionist
Youth, I decided to put my principles in action.
So
I called up Sam Cimaglia. After a few moments of low level détente (I expressed
my sympathy for his members' plight, and he expressed sympathy for those whose
religious beliefs require speedy burial) I suggested a plan. Habonim would coordinate
a team of volunteers to dig graves. If a family had a letter signed by a rabbi,
stating that the burial was required by a religious belief (and not mere
convenience) then we would do the job. For our work, we would charge whatever
the cemetery owners charged for digging the plot, and we would donate the money
to a strike fund for the workers.
Sam
expressed profuse enthusiasm for the idea, with one caveat. He said he would
agree to let our volunteers dig the graves. His workers would even advise us.
But he did not want to accept any money. The union would help us because it was
the right thing to do, and not to make money.
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