Last year, my friend Georgia and I walked in the cemetery near her apartment every Tuesday after work. As I mentioned earlier, one of the things we wondered about was why the headstones in the Jewish section all had pebbles and stones on them.


My friend Sam, a former Hebrew teacher of junior high students and my source of knowledge for most things Jewish, e-mailed me to tell me why.

(He's an engineer so forgive the typos)

Cemetery

The rocks are a tradition, to show someone visited. I doon't know from where. This, from a Jewish stuff website:

Question

Why do Jews put pebbles or rocks on graves (like in the movie Schindler's List)?

Answer

It is currently a Jewish custom to put a pebble on the headstone when one visits a grave to mark that you have been there and that you respect the one who has passed on.

It is difficult to know exactly when and why the custom originated and whether it is strictly Jewish. I personally suspect that this custom arose out of the time (possible Roman or earlier) when people - not all Jews - would weigh down the grave or seal the tomb with a stone in order to: (1) prevent anyone including animals from harming the body and (2) prevent an evil spirit from escaping out to harm us.

So there you go.