- In this episode of "World's Greatest Cemeteries."

Who was Mr. Manischewitz?

- Cincinnati was a very large city at the time.

There were other Germans from Germany that were here, and so many of the first Jews that came to Cincinnati were from Germany.

- And when the war came in '61, it felt like it was the right thing to do.

- And at the bottom we see a common epitaph on Jewish monuments that symbolizes may their souls be bound in the bonds of eternal life.

- The world's greatest cemeteries hold more than mortal remains.

They are monuments to landscape, design, horticulture, and history.

I've spent years investigating the lives of the dead, finding out all I can about extraordinary people who were outsiders in their own day, but still managed to make significant contributions to humankind.

One of the things I love the most about this series is getting to learn more about our own country.

Today we're in Ohio at the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati.

Welcome to "World's Greatest Cemeteries."

Cincinnati, the third largest city in Ohio, is situated on the Ohio River across from Covington, Kentucky.

It is home to Hebrew Union College, the University of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Reds, the Cincinnati Bengals, several statues of the Bearcat, and the famed cheese coney sandwiches.

(gentle music) The Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati is an umbrella organization that includes over 20 separate properties in and around the city.

We filmed at a handful of them.

Karen, so nice to meet you.

- Thank you, you, too.

So tell me about the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati.

When was it founded?

- Jews came to Cincinnati 200 years ago this year.

We're actually celebrating the bicentennial.

And when they got here they decided that they better get a cemetery established, and they established the first cemetery, and that is considered the establishment of community in the Jewish religion.

That was Chestnut Street Cemetery downtown.

(bright piano music) - I spoke with Danielle Minson about the history of Jewish people in the Cincinnati area.

I didn't know there was a long-standing Jewish community right here in Cincinnati.

Why did Jews come to Cincinnati, of all places?

- They came to Cincinnati because they wanted to forge a new life for themselves.

Cincinnati was a very large city at the time.

There were other Germans from Germany that were here, and so many of of the first Jews that came to Cincinnati were from Germany.

- In the 19th century, German immigration to the U.S. surged, including thousands of Jewish people suffering from anti-Semitic violence in German states and Austria - Hungary.

Many came to farm in the fertile Ohio Valley.

Urban Germans brought their skills to cities like Cincinnati.

Did these people get along in Germany before they came to Cincinnati?

- In Germany, the Jewish community and the Christian Catholic community had relationships.

They were a thriving community.

And they had friends in Cincinnati.

And so thus, when the Jewish community was looking to forge a new frontier for a better life they came here because they had many community members from their hometowns who were also coming to Cincinnati.

- [Roberto] Over time, there were several different synagogues around the city.

Many of those congregations had their own burial grounds.

Danielle explains how those cemeteries came under one umbrella.

- So in 2008 we formed the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati.

And what is so unique about that organization is that it puts together all different streams of Judaism so that all of the various practices and burial practices and traditions are all consolidated under one organization.

And this organization both does the burial and they also do the maintenance and the upkeep of their various cemeteries.

- So are these cemeteries still burying people?

- Yes, all but one are still burying people.

- So cremation is really on the rise in cemeteries around the world.

Can Jewish people be cremated?

- So traditionally Jewish community, Jewish, Jews are not cremated.

And while I do know that we do allow it today and it does exist, many Jews still prefer to go back to the tradition and not be cremated.

The whole concept is that we are buried in a white shroud with nothing ordained on our body so that we can just go back and be a part of the earth.

(gentle piano music) - [Roberto] Coming up later this episode.

- And when the war came 'in 61, it felt like it was the right thing to do.

(gentle music) - We are standing at the Walnut Hills Cemetery in Cincinnati.

All of our monuments are historic works of art that require special care, maintenance, preservation, and sometimes even repair.

So this is the Bischof Ossuary.

And what that means is a holding space for human remains.

In this case, cremated remains.

So it's similar to a mausoleum, but much smaller.

And on this ossuary we have some pretty remarkable features.

This is the palm frond, which represents immortality and peace, and in the Jewish culture it can also symbolize the tree of life.

Here we have the wings of Isis, which are outspread in a protective stance providing protection for the deceased.

And these wings also represent birds of prey, which have cries similar to that of distraught women.

Here we have the names of those interred in the ossuary.

At the top we see the symbol for here lies, which is common on most all Jewish monuments.

And at the bottom we see a common epitaph on Jewish monuments that symbolizes may their souls be bound in the bonds of eternal life.

And at the bottom we have lotus flowers, which represent purity and resurrection.

(gentle music) - [Roberto] Coming up later this episode.

First of all, what is matzo?

- Matzo is unleavened bread that Jewish people, that's the only bread they're allowed to eat on Passover.

(bright music) - So, I think if I say the word archeology, people might think of Indiana Jones, that swashbuckling adventurer, but the real archeology is not quite like that.

Here in Cincinnati, we have a true life archeologist and a renowned biblical scholar who passed away.

His name was Dr. Nelson Glueck.

Would you please tell us about Dr. Glueck?

- Well, Nelson Glueck was one of our most famous citizens in Cincinnati.

He was born here in Cincinnati and raised here.

He became probably one of the most prominent religious leaders and scholars of the 20th century.

- [Roberto] Dr. Glueck's initial studies centered on the Bible.

Soon, however, he began to specialize in biblical archeology.

- So although the miracle stories in the Bible are always those elements that people question, how could this have happened?

How could that have happened?

But there are many aspects of the biblical text that are key to helping biblical archeologists relocate cities, communities that existed in the pre-Christian era.

So he became very famous for that, not only as the president of the Hebrew Union College, but actually the emphasis was on his studies as a biblical archeologist.

And it was at a time when the Dead Sea Scrolls were being talked about.

And just the community in general is fascinated by this topic.

- [Roberto] Dr. Glueck played a key role in the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

- Being as prominent as he was, it doesn't seem to me to be such a surprise that in reaching out for what you might call the minority community, they would go to Dr. Glueck, and that's exactly what happened.

In March of 1960 he delivered, I think it was the benediction at President Kennedy's inauguration.

And famously he was the first rabbi not to deliver a benediction at an inauguration.

He was actually the third.

- Is that right?

- Yes, but he was the first, as far as I know, to actually conclude by reciting Hebrew.

He recites the priestly benediction from Leviticus, and that was quite a shock.

It was not common to hear a foreign language at that time.

And so he made quite an impression.

(gentle music) - So besides Dr. Nelson Glueck, there's also Dr. Helen Glueck.

And we were just talking about her.

Would you please tell us a bit about her and her remarkable career?

- Well, Dr. Glueck, also born in Cincinnati, Helen Glueck, was able to gain admission to medical school at a time when it was very difficult for women to rise to that level of education.

And she went on to a remarkable career in medicine.

She became a professor of hematology at the University of Cincinnati.

Her specialty was blood coagulation.

And she, in her own right, was very prominent.

I remember lots of times she was always often introduced as the real Dr. Glueck.

- (chuckling) That's terrific.

(bright music) Rabbi Isaac Jeruzalmi, PhD, was Professor Emeritus of Bible and Semitic Languages at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

To find out more about the Sephardic Jewish community we interviewed Rabbi Jeruzalmi's widow, Nimet Jeruzalmi.

So here we are in the Spanish Hebrew section of the cemetery at Price Hills with Mrs. Jeruzalmi, hello.

- Hi, nice to see you.

(Roberto laughing) - I've asked her to explain to me what the word Spanish Hebrew Society means.

What does that mean?

Well, we are Sephardic Jews, which means Spanish Jews, which were expelled in 1492 from Spain.

Some- - That's the same year that Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

- Correct.

Some converted to Christianity and some didn't want to.

So they immigrated east.

- The word Sephardic is derived from the Hebrew word for Spain, sepharad.

After the expulsions from Spain and Portugal, these Sephardic Jews settled, among other places, in southern parts of Europe, north Africa, and the Near East, notably the Ottoman Empire.

Sephardic people began migrating from Turkey to Cincinnati in 1906.

By 1921, members were being buried at this cemetery.

Later waves of Sephardim came to Cincinnati from Greece, the Near East, north Africa, and other places, notably maintaining the unique folkways that distinguished them from central and northern European, or Ashkenazi, Jews.

- And we speak a dialect of Spanish, which the Spaniards think is old Spanish, and that's why it is Spanish Jews, and Hebrew, because Jews generally speak Hebrew.

- [Roberto] Where are most Sephardic Jews in America living today?

- They live in New York.

They live in Atlanta, Chicago, and LA.

- Wow, okay, got it- - Florida.

- Florida, where so many Jews live, right?

- Yes.

- All right, very good.

So your husband was a scholar, an author, a beloved professor, and an official at the Hebrew Union College here in Cincinnati.

But he was also a father and a grandfather and a husband.

So what do you most want people to know about your late husband?

- Well, he was a Sephardic Jew in his core, and he also was a scholar and a liberal Jew.

And when he graduated from college, he promised himself that he was going to be an open-minded rabbi, like his rabbis and like his professors.

So that's why he chose the Hebrew Union College to study here and to become a rabbi.

- So would you please tell us what some of these symbols mean, please?

Let's start with this top line.

- [Nimet] Okay, now this whole monument was designed by me, specially, and my children.

- Yes.

- One of them is a rabbi.

My daughter is a rabbi.

So she chose this inscription from the "Song of Songs."

So it means His, meaning God, left hand is under my head and his right hand is hugging me.

- [Roberto] Okay.

- [Nimet] So this is a replica of the Hebrew Union College, which I wanted in the front of the stone.

And this is our name.

And since we are from Turkey, and kind of Ottoman, I like the traditional Turkish tulip incarnation.

That's what we put in there.

- Beautiful.

And this?

- So this is exactly for him.

So first line is (speaking foreign language).

Here he rests.

Isaac.

(speaking foreign language) Means rabbi, scholar.

Yitzhak is his Hebrew name.

And then this line is (speaking foreign language) which means that he is the son of David and (indistinct).

And then that's the Hebrew date of his passing.

And then the Latin date.

- So would you please say goodbye to me in Ladino?

- A goodbye is (speaking Ladino).

(both laughing) - So we would say adios.

Adio.

- Like in Spanish.

- Not adios, adio.

- Si.

- Adio.

- Yeah.

- Right, sounds a lot like Spanish.

(both speaking Spanish) (Roberto laughing) - Yeah.

(bright music) - When I think of American food empires names like Pillsbury, Heinz, and Campbell's come to mind.

Here in Cincinnati we find another American food manufacturer, Dov Behr Manischewitz.

Who was Mr. Manischewitz?

- That in itself is a very interesting question.

He was an individual born in Lithuania, and he needed to escape from the Czarist Russian drafting.

And he couldn't keep the name that he had.

He was born with the name Abramson.

- Right.

I asked Jack why Abramson might not want to be in the Russian army.

- Really from two sides.

Number one side, you were giving up your life basically to be in the Russian Army, because when you got into the Russian Army you were there for 20 years.

And on top of that, your chore was to cleanse the countryside of Jewish people.

And so it was a double-edged sword.

- [Roberto] So Abramson, who had studied under a local rabbi, purchased the identity papers of a dead man named Manischewitz and immigrated to Cincinnati around 1886.

- Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz was an individual who was trained in a rabbinical college in Lithuania.

And he came, was drafted, per se, to come...

He was drafted, per se, to come to Cincinnati to be a shochet, which was a ritual slaughterer, and to be an educator in the city.

- [Roberto] Now this is important.

So to be a shochet is important, why?

- Why, because a Jewish person is not allowed to eat any standard meat that's off the shelf in a grocery store.

They must eat ritually slaughtered, properly prepared kosher meat.

- [Roberto] So then what happens next in his life?

- He arrives in Cincinnati, he begins his job, but he's not satisfied with the way his job is going, and he starts seeing a need in the city for matzo for Passover season.

- [Roberto] At this point, Cincinnati's Jewish population was growing and matzo was in demand.

First of all, what is matzo?

- Matso is unleavened bread that Jewish people, that's the only bread they're allowed to eat on Passover.

- [Roberto] And this has some ancient roots, doesn't it?

- Yes.

- What's the story?

- The story is that when the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, Pharaoh wanted them out as quickly as possible.

They prepared do dough for the journey.

But he said, "I want you out now.

"I don't want you to be taking time "to bake this up in the oven.

"Take your dough and get outta here."

And they left.

They had no time to let it rise and to to bake it as normal bread.

- [Roberto] Matzo had traditionally been made by hand according to a strict religious regimen.

Attempts at matzo making machinery began as far back as 1850.

But Manischewitz developed a unique business advantage.

- His innovation was mass production.

Eventually mass production.

Didn't happen right away.

It took time.

And the marketing that he was successful in achieving.

- So I have to tell you, I spent a lot of my childhood in New York, and we heard that Manischewitz jingle on the radio all the time and the Manischewitz tagline.

And we saw Manischewitz products in the supermarket.

And it wasn't until junior high school, which I happened to go in Flushing New York, and there were a lot of Jewish kids in class, and I finally tasted matzo, and I was like, what?

This is what all the hoopla's about?

(both laughing) The Manischewitz company became very successful, eventually adding other religious food products to its brand, including wines, cookies, pasta, and soups.

Rabbi Manischewitz himself passed away in 1914.

So who took over the business?

- So the company was bought up by a conglomerate that is using the name and still manufacturing their products and probably expanding the line, but marketing it under the Manischewitz's name.

- Find out more about the story of Passover, the history of matzo, and the situation of Jews in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia in the 1880s on our website.

(gentle music) Coming up later this episode.

(bright music) (somber music) Cincinnati citizens, secular and religious, black and white, Christian and Jewish, participated in the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s.

Abraham Goldhagen was one of them.

So, Abraham Goldhagen is a very important person in the Civil Rights movement, just by his presence.

- Correct.

- Why don't you tell us about him?

- That is correct.

He was a person of courage.

He was a proprietor of Wein Bar Tavern in Cincinnati, and he had the chutzpah to sit at lunch counters together with his black friends.

- So he was arrested, wasn't he?

With his other companions.

- He felt that there was a great injustice taking place in America of his day, and he wanted to do his part to do away with this injustice.

- Was he a rabbi or some other religious official?

- He was just a common individual.

But it's not easy to be a common individual.

You have to work at it.

- At the time of his death, Goldhagen was treasurer emeritus of the Cincinnati NAACP and had participated for decades in protests, demonstrations, and activism for social justice causes.

(serene music) The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest medal for valor and combat that can be awarded to members of the armed forces.

(serene music) - I came to this country in 1859, been here a few years, was a good home.

It was good to me.

Good to my family.

And when the war came in '61, it felt like it was the right thing to do, to fight for it.

The men in the community felt like it was the right thing to do, to fight for it.

And so I knew that's what I had to do.

I had to enlist.

And I enlisted in Company B of the 58th Ohio.

(serene music) - Corporal David Urbansky, who immigrated from Prussia, was awarded the medal for gallantry in action against Confederate soldiers in the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee in 1862, and again at the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863.

(serene music) (soldiers murmuring) (bright music) The Chestnut Street Cemetery, founded in 1821, is the oldest Jewish cemetery west of the Allegheny Mountains.

(bright music) "Star Trek" was a 1960s science fiction TV series.

Co-star Leonard Nimoy played Vulcan science officer, Mr. Spock.

Nimoy was born in Boston to a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant family.

He adapted Mr. Spock's famous Vulcan salute and the tagline live long and prosper from a traditional Jewish blessing.

You can see that symbol on several headstones here in Cincinnati.

Join us all season long as we travel to the world's greatest cemeteries, touring masterpieces of landscape, gardens, and culture while reliving dramatic stories about diverse historical figures.

- Here lies the body of John Jack, a native of Africa.

- Marie Laveau Was a native Orleanian.

She was a free woman of color.

She was a Creole.

- She told me, "I don't approve of women sculptors as a rule."

And then she said, "Every woman is better off at home, "taking care of husband and children."

- When Celia Cruz passed away, thousands of people lined the street as we followed the funeral procession.

- Let's start with you telling us a bit about Herman Melville.

- Well, what we know about Melville in Woodlawn is he started out as a young man writing about the South Pacific.

- Well, the Chinese were actually brought here as contract workers after the Civil War.

- [Roberto] We'll discover artistic designs, check out stunning vistas, and uncover surprising facts about the past.

So Jokichi Takamine, a great scientist, a great humanitarian, what is he known for?

- [Susan] He's known internationally for isolating adrenaline.

- Well, that's our visit to Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati.

Check out our site for more info and links.

And if you go, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about the experience.

Okay, till next time.

You can find out more about this episode.

Just get in touch or tell us about your favorite cemetery or historical figure at www.worldsgreatestcemeteries.co.

(bright music) (light music)