CLOSE-UP

Now
And
Forever

Detroit's Jewish cemeteries
are becoming big business

DAN ACOSTA

Special to The Jewish News

he street is gone. And
forgotten. But the monu-
ments remain at the
Champlain Street Ceme-
tery, the oldest existing
Jewish burial ground in Michigan,
adjacent to Elmwood Cemetery about
two miles east of downtown Detroit.
Its upright stones are large, chipped
and tilted — their surfaces pitted from
more than a century of standing
against the elements and an abrasive,
industrial atmosphere.
The German-Jewish immigrants of
Temple Beth El founded the Detroit
cemetery in 1851. No records reveal
the cost of a plot in those early days,
but the congregation's archivist, Aid
Kushner, says the half-acre tract was
surely bought for less than 15 cents
a square foot.
"Every once in a while," adds
Kushner, "someone would walk over
there with a lawn mower and clean
the place up."
There is no room for more graves
in the old cemetery. Ibmple Beth El's
new burial ground in Livonia is not
called a cemetery, rather a "memorial
park," with ground-level grave
markers instead of upright
monuments, and where a typical plot
costs $600. The 40-acre site is a ver-

24

FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1987

Remembering a relative at Beth El Memorial Park.

dant surface broken only by occa-
sional benches and many maples,
hawthorns, honey locusts, pines and
cedars. Only ground-level markers
are used for aesthetic and economic
reasons. •
The park is maintained :under the
supervision of a professional who
studied horticulture at a major
university. Some of his crew ride
speedy Yazoos, tail-whipping mowers
that cut a five-foot swath of grass.
Others wield whining Green
Machines — one-horse-powered
sickles that whip weeds and grass to
sheared perfection.
But more than granite and grass
have changed in the cemetery
business. Modern cemetery managa-
ment requires a team of hor-
ticulturists, landscape architects,
groundskeepers (locally, most hold
United Steelworkers' union cards),
teams of seasonal workers on break
from college, salespeople, bankers,
stock brokers and investment
counselors.
Those professional money
managers play an increasingly live-
ly role in the mortality business. For
instance, a local congregation-owned
cemetery has a $5.2 million portfolio,
and one industry expert sees no