Hebron's Stories
If a story is important, then it must be told. We can portray dreams of what the future may hold, or allow introspection on what has occurred in the past. A story is a narrative that can relay lessons and warnings. A story can teach us about hope and remind us how important and meaningful our lives are. We are unearthing stories about those buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
Judge Morris L. Schwalb rose from a poor childhood on the Lower East Side to the New York State Supreme Court, guided by education and an unwavering belief in fairness. The son of Polish Jewish immigrants, he worked hard from an early age and built a legal career known for integrity during a changing era in the city. He loved theater, reconnected with his heritage later in life, and valued doing what was right over recognition. His daughter Susan remembers him as a principled and private man whose legacy is preserved in a Jewish historical archive.
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Marian Boykan Pour-El was a trailblazing mathematician whose work reshaped the understanding of logic, computation, and physics. Born in New York City in 1928, she earned her Ph.D. from Harvard at a time when few women pursued advanced mathematics and went on to become a respected professor at the University of Minnesota. Her research revealed that even simple physical systems can behave in ways that defy computation, challenging ideas about predictability in science. Beyond her groundbreaking discoveries, she also broke barriers for women and Jewish scholars in academia, leaving behind a legacy of intellect, resilience, and inspiration. ~Blog by Deirdre Mooney Poulos
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Morris Weinfeld (1898-1988) was a Jewish-American lawyer, state legislator, and judge whose career reflected a deep commitment to justice and public service in New York City. Born in Manhattan and educated at NYU Law, he served four terms in the State Assembly before working as Deputy Attorney General and on the National Labor Relations Board. In 1960, he was appointed to the New York City Criminal Court, where he earned a reputation for swift and decisive rulings. His personal life included a highly publicized legal dispute and later marriage to Jewish civic leader Beatrice Ladin Block. Weinfeld passed away in 1988 and is buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery. May his memory be a blessing. ~Blog by Deirdre Mooney Poulos
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Irwin Louis Dash (1892-1984) was an American songwriter, pianist, and music publisher whose career spanned ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, and mid-century novelty hits. He began composing during the ragtime era and collaborated with lyricists like Al Dubin and Jimmy McHugh on vaudeville-era songs. In the 1940's, he co-wrote the novelty classic "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" while publishing music in London under the pseudonym Lewis Ilda. Dash's work reflected the evolving sound of popular music across two continents and several decades. ~Blog by Deirdre Mooney Poulos
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Hyman Ashkin, born in 1903 to Russian Jewish immigrants on Manhattan's Lower East Side, overcame childhood rheumatic fever and resulting heart damage to become a skilled surgeon. A Columbia graduate, he married Ruth Ryskind in 1935 but had to give up surgery after a heart attack in 1937. Moving to California in 1938, he worked as a prison doctor and later at Lockheed during WWII, treating injured workers and volunteering at a Jewish orphanage. He also helped rescue a Jewish woman from Austria under restrictive U.S. immigration laws. After the war, he provided low-cost pediatric care until his early death from heart failure in 1947.
~Written by his Daughter, Linda Stewart
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Louis Astor Schoffel was born in 1894 and grew up on Orchard Street, the son of Austrian immigrants and the only brother of five sisters. He started out studying medicine, then turned to law, graduating from New York Law School in 1916. In 1921 he married Lena Zahn and won a seat in the New York State Assembly, where he served four terms. He went on to serve as Registrar of Bronx County and then as a Municipal Court Justice, elected in 1933 and again in 1943. In 1936 his daughter Gloria was killed in a car accident. He died of a heart attack in 1946 and rests at Mount Hebron. ~Blog by Renee Meyers
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Louis Lefkowitz grew up on the Lower East Side. At sixteen, he finished high school and worked full time as a law clerk while studying law at night at Fordham. He served in the State Assembly and as a municipal judge. In 1957, he became New York's attorney general. He held the office for twenty-two years, longer than anyone since 1777. He was a pioneer of consumer protection and merit hiring, as comfortable with ordinary New Yorkers as with Frank Sinatra. People called him the people's lawyer. He died in 1996 at 91 and rests at Mount Hebron. The state office building at 80 Centre Street carries his name. ~Blog by Renee Meyers
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Fred Spira was born in Vienna in 1924. After the Nazis took Austria, his parents placed a newspaper ad: "Austrian boy, age 14, with affidavit for America, needs temporary home in England." He escaped on the Kindertransport. In 1940, the family was reunited in New York with almost nothing. Fred worked two jobs, went to high school at night, and graduated valedictorian. He grew the family business, Spiratone, into a household name in photography and was one of the first to bring quality Japanese camera equipment to America. He also collected more than 20,000 pieces of photographic history. Fred Spira died in 2007 and rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery. ~Blog by Renee Meyers
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Florika Remetier was a 6 year old prodigy violinist. She played with the BBC Orchestra in London and toured with the Baltimore Symphony and the Boston Symphony Orchestras. She appeared on radio and TV as a young violinist. She suffered a mental breakdown as an adolescent that prematurely ended her promising musical career. When she grew up she moved to California and became interested in the Women's Liberation movement. She joined the New York Radical Women (NYRW) and she co-founded the feminist guerrilla theater group W.I.T.C.H.
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Louis Dewitt Gibbs was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1880. He was four years old when his family came to America. He grew up on New York's East Side and studied at Cooper Union and New York Law School. He served in the State Legislature. Then he made history as the first judge of Bronx County. Both parties endorsed him. In 1924, he was elected to the New York Supreme Court. Criminals knew him as a strict and tough judge. He was still on the bench when he died on March 1, 1929. Flags on the Bronx and New York County courthouses flew at half-staff. Justice Gibbs rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
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Morris Kessler was the personal chauffeur and a mobster working with Joseph Amberg, one of the leaders of a criminal organization.
Morris was murdered as he and Amberg were about to collect "protection money" from neighborhood barbershops and restaurants.
Their executioners, believed to be from Murder, Inc. organization, machine-gunned them to death. Morris was only 23 years old.
This crime has remained unsolved.
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Asher Selig Grossinger came to America from Galicia in 1897. He pressed pants over hot coals on the Lower East Side, then sent for his wife, Malke, and their daughters. A butcher shop failed. A restaurant failed. His health broke. So the family moved to a rocky farm in Ferndale, in the Catskills. In 1914, a guest named Mrs. Brown asked to board with them. That summer, nine guests paid a total of $81. The little boarding house grew, and grew again. Under his daughter Jennie, it became Grossinger's, the Waldorf of the Catskills. Selig died in 1931, at age 64, and rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery. ~Blog by Renee Meyers
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Judge Murray Gurfein was a distinguished lawyer whose career spanned nearly 50 years. He was also active in many Jewish affairs over the course of his life. Judge Gurfein was a tenacious attorney who tried famous cases, a war crimes Prosecutor at Nuremberg, a distinguished civil and criminal trial lawyer and a federal jurist on district and appeals court benches in Manhattan. Judge Gurfein presided over scores of complex tax, anti trust and Securities cases as well as many criminal trials, school desegregation suits and complex trial issues ranging from price fixing to paternity questions. He received national prominence with his ruling on the Pentagon Papers case that became the hallmark of his judicial career.
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Jeanne Sobelson Manford was a Queens schoolteacher and a mother. In 1972, she learned that her son Morty had been beaten at a protest. She did not stay quiet. She wrote a letter to the newspaper. Then she marched beside Morty in the Pride march, carrying a handmade sign asking parents to support their gay children. Along the route, people ran up to her in tears. They asked her to talk to their own parents. The next year, she started a support group for parents. It grew into PFLAG, which now helps families across the country. In 2012, she was honored with the Presidential Citizens Medal. Jeanne Manford rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
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Tuba Yaroshevsky was born in Odesa in 1925. She was sixteen when Nazi Germany invaded. Her father went to fight and was never found. Tuba, her mother, and her little brother fled to Kazakhstan, where they lived with a Kazakh family and often went hungry. After the war, she came home to Odesa, married Simon Zisman, and went to work in a plastics factory. She rose to lead the workers' union. For years she fought for better conditions and housing, and she even served on the city council. In 1979, she brought her family to a new life in New York. Tuba Zisman rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery. ~Blog by Rene Yaroshevsky
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William Irving Sirovich was born in Pennsylvania in 1882 to Hungarian Jewish immigrants. When he was six, the family moved to New York City. He studied medicine at Columbia, became a doctor, and ran Peoples Hospital for seventeen years. He served as a commissioner of child welfare for twelve years. He also wrote plays, and several reached Broadway. In 1926, voters finally sent him to Congress. He served six terms and chaired the House Committee on Patents. He was a physician, a playwright, and a public servant, all at once, and he gave each role his whole heart. He died in office in December 1939 and rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
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Charles Pores was the King of Long Distance Running and won the 5 Mile Title three times during WWI. He now rests with us at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
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In 1941, with the birth of her son Leonard, Nina Eaton found herself propelled into a lifetime of challenge, triumph, uncertainties and opportunities, heartbreak and hope, but mostly of achievement. Through her own experiences she selflessly chose to help others by creating the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation.
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Jeanne Sobelson Manford was a Queens schoolteacher and a mother. In 1972, she learned that her son Morty had been beaten at a protest. She did not stay quiet. She wrote a letter to the newspaper. Then she marched beside Morty in the Pride march, carrying a handmade sign asking parents to support their gay children. Along the route, people ran up to her in tears. They asked her to talk to their own parents. The next year, she started a support group for parents. It grew into PFLAG, which now helps families across the country. In 2012, she was honored with the Presidential Citizens Medal. Jeanne Manford rests at Mount Hebron Cemetery.
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Leon Solomon Moisseiff was a leading suspension bridge engineer in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. He was awarded The Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1933.
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Elizabeth Blume Silverstein was the first female to practice law in New Jersey and was an advocate for women's rights. She now rests with us at Mount Hebron.
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