“Discovering Our Roots” — an expanded education program will happen at the cemeteries, with engagement by students of the area’s religious schools, adult community leaders, and others.
On April 7, 2024, religious school students from our community’s synagogues will attend a program at the adjacent Jewish Cemeteries on Pitman Avenue in Hamilton, NJ, along with their parents, grandparents, and other members of our Jewish community.
This program is also designed to create empathy — to “walk in the shoes” of Jewish ancestors who left their homes to escape persecution, pogroms, and poverty in search of a better life in America.
Our objective is to nurture local Jewish students’ understanding and appreciation for those who have come before them, beginning with the pioneering Jews who arrived in the Greater Trenton region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, represented by graves dating from 1857 to the present.
Researching one’s own families will help to create a fuller picture of Jewish life in Trenton and other cities during the time period these families lived. When possible, students will seek out descendants of their own family or others to do the research. The GTJCP Genealogy committee will be available for research support and consultation.
On site each costumed student reenactor will tell an ancestor’s story — their own, or that of someone buried there — engaging small groups of attendees in dialogue and answering questions about ancestors’ life and times, and the role their Jewish identity had in shaping the stories, struggles.
Partial funding is provided by the Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks