The Saylesville Massacre

The Moshassuck Cemetery can be found today in Central Falls, near its border with the City of Pawtucket. On December 31, 1870, Abraham Jacobs, who served as chazan, or cantor, for the newly organized Congregation Sons of David, purchased a plot of land in its northwest corner of the cemetery.  Four years later,  Congregation Sons of David merged with Congregation of the Sons of Israel under the corporate name Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David. The newly merged congregation then decided to use the consecrated space in Moshassuck Cemetery for the burial of non-members, relatives of members and for charitable cases – that is to say, not for congregation members. The congregation already had its own large cemetery in Providence for the use of members. 

Many other groups would buy into Moshassuck Cemetery over the next 25 years. One of the tombstones there has an interesting and tragic story. 

During the Great Depression there was a great deal of labor unrest. In 1934, some of the Labor Day strikes happening in Rhode Island were peaceful, but not at two mills belonging to the Manville Jenckes Co., a textile bleaching company, one of which was adjacent to Moshassuck Cemetery. 

During the strike, the owners decided to bring in replacement workers across the picket lines, where it is said that thousands were gathered. When two of the strike breakers tried to push through the picket line, the union supporters would not let them; the Rhode Island State Guard attempted to move the strikers toward the cemetery, and a riot broke out. Strikers and soldiers ran into the cemetery, seeking cover and vantage points. Two men were hit by bullets and died. 

In addition, the tombstone of Rabbi Yosef Shaul Rabinowit was hit by bullets during the strike. An article by National Park Service Ranger Mark Mello, “The Saylesville Massacre and the American Tradition,” offers these insights:

“Two bullet holes are visible in the stone: a tangible reminder of the violence within the cemetery in September 1934. The engraving on the stone starts with a simple line from the Torah, ‘Stone shall cry from a wall!’ This most likely comes from a passage from the book of Habakkuk, which references the forced labor the Babylonians inflicted on the Jewish people in constructing buildings in their cities. Written millennia before the Saylesville massacre, this line offers a prophet’s damning criticism of a different political system. Across time, workers have cried out in pain when pushed too far. The lines in this stone, etched for posterity, bring these cries to life. The poetic, haunting line takes on new meaning with knowledge of the massacre… 

When considering the conditions experienced by Jewish people across the world in the 1930s and what was to come in the 1940s, two bullet holes piercing this already painful plea is ironic. Also, the plight of those protestors, many of whom were laborers in the textile industry, as they dove behind the stones evading messengers of death, is chilling. Perhaps this stone does wail—not just in memory of Rabbi Yosef and the plight of the Jewish people through the ages, but also to the memory of Goroynski and Blackwood, whose lives were lost during the Saylesville Massacre.” 

While the mill closed in the 1960s, Rabbi Rabinowit’s tombstone stands as a palpable reminder of this social action and communities impacted by this chapter in Rhode Island’s history.