baysidecemeterylitigation.com

Dear Bayside Cemetery Litigation Friends and Supporters:

It has been quite some time since I last emailed you about the status of my Bayside Cemetery Litigation.  Unfortunately there is little progress to report but I remain optimistic about the future for the matter.

Recently, I celebrated the third anniversary of my litigation against Congregation Shaare Zedek (CSZ), Bayside Cemetery (Bayside), and the Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries (CAJAC) which is an alter-ego offshoot of CSZ.  While considerable media attention has been paid over the past three years to the Bayside Cemetery atrocities, shockingly little has happened through the legal system to have the right things happen.  The cemetery continues to be an absolute mess and in violation of the Jewish law of Kavod Hamet – Honoring the Deceased. 

In fact, when I visited Bayside Cemetery on September 1, 2010, I observed a mausoleum that has not been maintained by the Congregation and I saw, through a very large open hole in the wall, exposed human bones lying on the floor of the building!  I also saw a staggering amount of debris and trash strewn all around the cemetery.

Pictures from my fall visit to Bayside Cemetery are available at

http://photos.baysidecemeterylitigation.com/GallerySlideshow.aspx?gallery=498623

Congregation Shaare Zedek continues to neglect Bayside Cemetery, fails to restore the cemetery’s monies, does not comply with requests for a full public and validated independent accounting of the cemetery’s past and present records and disregards the creation of an ongoing plan to manage and honor the perpetual care contracts that hundreds, or potentially thousands, of the cemetery’s deceased paid for.

In my last update I informed you that in late 2009 the lawsuit was re-filed in New York State Supreme Court and we had a hearing on June 3, 2010 for the new judge to hear the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss.  This process is routine in lawsuits.  We are now waiting for the judge’s decision on the Motion to Dismiss.  Regardless of the decision, new parties have come forward with additional circumstances so the case will continue.  We are not going to go away until the right thing is done for our ancestors at Bayside Cemetery.

For those of you following these issues, I know it is difficult to remain patient.  Our dead loved ones require our patience - my grandmother had been buried there for 23 years and my grandfather for nearly 40 years.  But to me, the sins at Bayside Cemetery are so numerous and the ethical and moral violations by Congregation Shaare Zedek are so deplorable and unconscionable that we must remain patient so that eventually the right thing can happen.

On a separate thread, the NY Attorney General’s Office has been investigating the Bayside Cemetery matter for about seven years now with no public disclosure of their results to date.  The State of NY has had two AG’s since this case began – oddly there have been hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of other matters that have been investigated and resolved by the AG’s office in the past seven years – cases that affect all aspects of living society.  Apparently the rights of the dead are of less interest to the AG’s office.  If the rights of the dead were important to the AG, the right thing would have been done by now and Bayside Cemetery would be 100% cleaned up, the cemetery monies would be restored in proper trust funds, the perpetual care contracts would be honored and a viable permanent management plan for Bayside Cemetery would be in place.

Some who have been following the Bayside Cemetery matter have commented that CAJAC has in fact been cleaning up the cemetery.  It is true that CAJAC has done work to cleanup a portion of Bayside Cemetery through weekend volunteer efforts and a small grant from the UJA Federation of NY.  But as my pictures from September 1, 2010 show, there is a massive amount of work still to be done.  And of course every Spring brings a new growing season – this is a battle of man versus nature – all the reason why a permanent management plan needs to be in place.

To me, the real issue is not to only do a one-time cleanup but rather to restore the monies of the cemetery and establish the necessary funding and a management plan for continuous permanent cemetery maintenance which is what all the people paid for when they bought Perpetual Care Contracts from Congregation Shaare Zedek.

I also want to emphasize several points, correct a few continuous misstatements from the media and disclose a few facts:

* CAJAC is a volunteer group and does not own Bayside Cemetery.  CAJAC morphed from an organization started by Congregation Shaare Zedek and was originally called Friends of Bayside Cemetery.  Until recently, CAJAC’s address was that of CSZ and was created by CSZ Board members.  As of their last 501(c)3 financial disclosure, CAJAC had virtually no assets.

* As of the date of this writing, CAJAC appears to have assumed maintenance and management responsibility for Bayside Cemetery.  It is not clear what if any effort the Congregation is making to fulfill their responsibility to their cemetery.  I have heard that the congregation recently fired both maintenance workers at the cemetery claiming they couldn’t afford them and CAJAC was going to handle Bayside Cemetery matters.  The cemetery no longer appears to be open to the public.  One person called me recently to report that they tried to arrange a visit to the cemetery and had to do so via the landscaper that CAJAC has on call for the cemetery.  I don’t believe the person was able to arrange the visit to the cemetery.  When I called the cemetery, I got an answering machine message to call the Congregation for routine matters but to call the landscaper, presumably hired by CAJAC, for emergencies.  It is not clear if Bayside Cemetery maintains hours for visitors.

* A recent article in the Queens Chronicle about Bayside Cemetery couldn’t have gotten more things wrong.  Clearly they only spoke to CAJAC; they never contacted me to discuss the case.  Despite what the article says, (1) the case has NOT been dismissed and become defunct but rather was re-filed in NY State Supreme Court in late 2009; (2) despite what CAJAC claims as they defend the congregation in the media, the condition of Bayside Cemetery is entirely the fault of Congregation Shaare Zedek – the congregation has admitted to improperly, and potentially illegally, misusing the cemetery funds for their own purposes and the results of their neglect at the cemetery are plain and obvious; (3) burial plots at the cemetery were not sold to burial societies like a real estate transaction – the congregation has always continued to own the cemetery and the congregation continued to sell perpetual care contracts until recent years.  The congregation took the money from the “customers” but has failed to honor their contracts.  When someone buys a burial plot, they don’t buy land but rather they buy the right to use the plot for a burial.  The physical property continues to be owned by the cemetery’s landowner, in this case Congregation Shaare Zedek.  That’s why the congregation sold annual and perpetual care contracts to “customers”.

I want to ask you all to please get more active calling and writing the media to focus more attention to the outrageous conduct of Congregation Shaare Zedek at Bayside Cemetery and to not allow CAJAC to obfuscate the real issues of the Bayside Cemetery matter.  The congregation, and CAJAC if appropriate, must be held accountable for the misdeeds at Bayside Cemetery.  It hasn’t been too long since Congregation Shaare Zedek took people’s money for Perpetual Care contracts – money that the Congregation admitted using for purposes other than the cemetery – and then they ignored their obligations to maintain the cemetery as they were paid to do.  Please do your part to draw attention to this wrong by speaking with the media, religious leaders, politicians, law enforcement, the NY Attorney General, the NY Health Department, etc. - anyone who will listen and help.

Feel free to email me for more information or for questions and comments.

Respectfully,

John Lucker

Plaintiff

Lucker et al vs. Congregation Shaare Zedek, Bayside Cemetery, and Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries