The words of the Kaddish reverberated through the air above the wail of the desert wind that gives this bluff overlooking the Dragoon Mountains in south-eastern Arizona a strange, haunting feeling.
The occasion was the recent dedication of the old Jewish cemetery at historic Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone. A monument was unveiled to commemorate all the Jewish pioneers who helped settle the West. Among the more than 200 people watching was C. Lawrence Huerta, a full-blooded Yaqui Indian from Tucson, who was the motivating force behind the restoration.
“This is a great day. I didn’t think we would be able to accomplish this,” said the 6-foot tall Huerta who was wearing a yarmulka and a traditional Indian headband over his long braided hair.
It was the summer of 1982 when Huerta invited Israel Rubin and his family to visit Arizona from Maryland. Huerta and Rubin had become close friends during the years Huerta spent in Washington, D.C., working on behalf of the Indian people. Huerta, who said he felt out of place in Washington, was befriended by Rubin, and developed an understanding of and attachment for Judaism.
NO MARKERS TO IDENTIFY THE DEAD
Huerta arranged for Al Turner, author and historian, to show the Rubin family around Tombstone. The group was touring the graveyard where famous and infamous gun slingers are buried, when Tumer asked if they wished to see the long-forgotten and abandoned Jewish section.
Rubin recalled struggling down a hill through thicket and prickly cactus in the intensive 100 degree heat. There at the northeast portion of Boothill, with the entrance facing east, lay the vandalized burial ground. The one 8-foot-high adobe wall was but a crumbling fraction of its former height. No markers were left to identify those who were buried there.
It was when Rubin began to recite the Kaddish that Huerta, the only Indian to be elected a judge in Arizona, was moved to restore the cemetery. “It developed into a religious experience for me. Had we just stood there it would have impressed me, that’s all. His saying Kaddish was doing more, it moved me to do something,” said the former circuit court judge.
Rubin said it was Huerta’s “tenacity and own feeling about the sacredness of a burial ground” that persuaded the members of the Jewish Friendship Club in Green Valley, a town 85 miles to the west, to get involved in the restoration.
NON-PROFIT GROUP CARRIES OUT THE PROJECT
The Tombstone Historical Jewish Graveyard, Inc., a non-profit corporation, led by David Sirota, was established to carry out the project. Donations accounted for the $3,000 necessary for the restoration, Sirota said.
A few minutes walk down a newly cleared path leads the way to the burial plot. Much of the back-breaking work to clear the area of brush and debris was done by the 59-year-old Huerta. The 2,500-square-foot tract is now enclosed by a wrought-iron fence.
The iron-cube monument, which also serves as a time capsule, stands on a two-tiered platform made from rocks taken from nearby abandoned silver mines. A Star of David adoms the east and west sides of the monument. On the south side is a HoHoKam Indian sun symbol. HoHoKam means “those who vanished” in the Papago Indian language.
DEDICATED TO ALL JEWISH PIONEERS
Atop the monument is a menorah with the flames designed to spell shalom, symbolizing the hope that all who share Mother Earth can dwell in harmony. Huerta said the monument was not just a remembrance to those buried in Boothill.
“It is dedicated to and honoring all Jewish pioneers that helped to open the West,” he said. “The reason we wanted Tombstone as the basis for this is that it has the connotation that it is better known than if a Jewish cemetery was found in Wyoming or Montana. There is the flavor of Indians all around.” Because of the large number of tourists who visit Tombstone and Boothill, it will be “the focal point for people to know about Jewish frontiersmen. It raises the conscious of Jews and non-Jews about the roles Jews played in the settlement of the West,” Huerta added.
ITEMS IN THE TIME CAPSULE
Among the items placed in the time capsule were a tallit, a miniature Torah, a spice box, tefillin, a menorah and a 150-year-old hymn book. Calling it “my mitzvah,” Huerta contributed an olive-wood bowl from Israel containing soil from Jerusalem that Rubin gave him as a gift. Alongside the Jewish articles, Huerta placed an Indian “harmony bowl” with samples of the three basic elements: animal, vegetable and mineral.
They included a swatch of elk skin, representing harmony among all earthly creatures; corn, symbolizing the bounty Father and Mother Earth provide; and Apache tears, pebbles that signify life’s sadness and death. According to legend, the small stones were formed as Apache women cried for the men who went off to battle. Soil from a mountain sacred to Indians also was enclosed in the capsule.
HONORING THE LOST AND FORGOTTEN
Huerta said, “In honoring my Jewish brothers, I feel I am also honoring the lost and forgotten bones of my own people who lay where they fell when the West was being settled.” Corporation members are conducting research to determine who was buried in the cemetery.
Tombstone, “the town too tough to die,” was established in 1878 after silver was discovered in the nearby mountains. The desolate area was home to the Apaches, and during Tombstone’s heyday settlers were the targets of raids under the leadership of Geronimo.
Among the town’s fascinating inhabitants were Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clanton gang. The feud between Earp and the Clantons erupted at the famous shootout at OK Corral in 1881.
One known Jewish resident of the town was Josephine Sarah Marcus who later became Earp’s third wife. However, the couple is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Coloma, Calif. Huerta said the graveyard corporation soon hopes to be able to put together a background of other Jews who were part of Tombstone’s colorful past.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
