Machpelah Cemetery is the final resting place of magician
Harry Houdini, his brother
Theodore Hardeen, his mother, father, grandfather, four other brothers, and a sister. Houdini's widow Bess, who died of a heart attack in 1943, had wished to be buried next to her husband, but instead was interred 35 miles north at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Westchester County, as her Catholic family refused to allow her to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. During October 1969, the 43rd anniversary of Houdini's death was celebrated on Halloween by The Spellbinder, the
Society of American Magicians. Among the members of the society's New York Chapter were one-hundred Long Island magicians, who went to Houdini's grave at Machpelah Cemetery to hold memorial services for the famed escape artist. Furthermore, Copperfield donated $15,000 to the Society of American Magicians in order to help undo an act of vandalism which desecrated several graves, along with Houdini's, after speaking with the Society of American Magician's Chairman
John Bohannon. "[Cemetery administrator] David Jacobson sends us a bill for upkeep every year but we never pay it." "The Society of American Magicians never paid the cemetery for any restoration of the Houdini family plot in my tenure since 1988," Jacobson said. The money came from the dwindling funds of the Machpelah Cemetery, he said. The Society of American Magicians performed a "broken wand" ritual on October 31, 1996, the anniversary of Houdini's death. This ritual in which a "magic wand" is broken symbolizes the end of the magician's power. The Society of American Magicians gave up trying to replace it. Houdini was president of this society at the time of his death in 1926. On September 27, 2011, a group from the
Harry Houdini Museum in Scranton secretly installed a reproduction of the bust, made from durable statuary cement. Among the group were
Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz, museum directors, and retired escape artist Stephen Moore. The officials of the cemetery and The Society, despite the unorthodox approach, stated they were pleased with the result. "When someone offers to repair something that's broken — in a charitable spirit — any cemetery would be thrilled," Jacobson, the cemetery director, said. ==References==