Friday, in the early morning Memphis light, with gravestones arranged at his feet and dragonflies hovering in the air, Rabbi Joel Finkelstein showed artist Iris Harkavy a photograph he had taken with his cell phone of the huge sculpted menorah that had just been erected on the east side of a 112-year-old Jewish cemetery on Airways Boulevard.

In the picture, the menorah's full 15 feet of height and 8,000 pounds of heft is on proud display against a brilliant blue sky. But what makes the photograph so striking is the shadow that stretches from the base of the menorah, like a silhouette stenciled on the grass, the branches of its candelabrum shape reaching out like fingers on a welcoming hand.

"See?" Harkavy told Finkelstein. "We cast a big shadow."

The line was such a perfect fit for this article it might have been a set-up. But Harkavy did not realize an eavesdropping reporter was standing nearby. Her wit was spontaneous, her pride sincere, her meaning broad. By "we," she meant not just the members of Anshei Sphard-Beth El Emeth Congregation who had gathered at the cemetery Friday but also the generations of Jewish people buried there and the representatives of her faith scattered around the world and across history.

Some people think cemeteries are creepy. Some people think they are cool. Harkavy —well known in Memphis as a longtime painter and sculptor — is in the latter group.

"I'm a cemetery person," said Harkavy, 81. "If I go out of town or I go to Europe, I want to visit the cemeteries. It's a wonderful way to see history."

Beautifying a resting place

Harkvay's cemetery love had a limit, however: She was not enamored of Anshei Sphard Cemetery at 2160 Airways, where, as a member of the Anshei Sphard-Beth El Emeth Congregation, she presumably was expected to eventually, um, relocate.

Speaking of relocation, Iris Harkavy moved from Louisville to Memphis in 1958, after she married attorney Ronald Harkavy. She liked the city and her Modern Orthodox synagogue, but disliked the synagogue's "ugly" cemetery.

Iris and Ronald Harkavy have had "an ongoing discussion" about the issue, Iris said. "'I said, 'I am not going to be buried in that cemetery.’ He said, 'You mean you don't want to be with me?' And I said, 'That's what I'm saying.' And that's gone on for 60 years."

When it was founded in 1907, Anshei Sphard Cemetery was in a bucolic part of town, on a dirt road near the area once known as Pigeon Roost. Now, the pigeons have flown the roost and the dirt has been replaced by busy Airways Boulevard, which leads to Memphis International Airport.

The immediate neighborhood is industrial, with the cemetery and its several hundred graves located across the street from the warehouses of the old U.S. Army Defense Depot, where trucks rumble daily.

Some readers might say that at least the residents of Anshei Sphard Cemetery don't mind the noise. Some other readers might say it's not respectful to joke about the dead. But walk among the tombstones and you'll find evidence that at least one of the deceased would appreciate the wisecrack.

She's Ellyn Olswing; she died in 1994 at the age of 69, and on her grave, at her request, is this inscription: "I told you I was sick."

Also among the buried is one Moses Sax, who died in 1907 at the age of 104, making him the site's oldest dead person, so to speak. His presence is an example of the history that Harkavy finds in cemeteries.

In any case, Ronald Harkavy eventually told Iris to "put your effort where your whining is." Airways Boulevard could not be relocated, obviously, but Anshei Sphard Cemetery could be improved and beautified. So Iris Harkavy decided to take on the place as a project.

Said Finkelstein: "Iris is the visionary."

Said Harkavy: "A cemetery is forever. I want it to inspire people, when they put their loved ones in graves."

A 'beautiful and poetic symbol'

The result of this vision is a project that reached a climax of sorts Friday morning with the installation of what Harkavy calls an "artistic representation" of a seven-branched menorah, the candelabrum that has been the symbol of Judaism from antiquity (such a menorah was said to have been placed in the First Temple in Jerusalem) to today (it is the emblem of the State of Israel).

The monumental menorah sculpture was lifted into place Friday morning by a Pearson Brothers crane, and welded to a base that will be at the center of a meditation garden in the newly opened east acreage of the cemetery.

Created by Memphis sculptor Tyler French and his team of artists from Harkavy's design, the stylized menorah was welded together from slats and sheets of Cor-Ten, a trademarked steel alloy that contains copper and requires no maintenance. It oxidizes to a certain point — the menorah already looks red and rusty — and then stops.

"It is really built to last and last and last, without any noticeable degradation over time," said French, 46, known for such local landmarks as the archway made of bicycles at Overton Park and the big new "MEMPHIS" sign on Mud Island. "I think that makes it a really beautiful and poetic symbol."

Also intended to be "elegant and timeless," he said, was the "simplified and geometric form" of the menorah sculpture, which contains time capsules of synagogue memorabilia and historical records within its hollow interior.

French also created a new sign for the cemetery, plus new gates with adjacent basins that will contain small stones for visitors to place on the headstones, in accordance with Jewish tradition, which favors stones over flowers.

Said French: "In a week, flowers will have faded and wilted, but a stone lasts and has a simple sort of timelessness."

In addition, Harkavy and her team of volunteers and others are fixing up the cemetery's 1920 chapel. They have reclaimed the barrel ceiling (which had been hidden by drop-down tiles) and terrazzo floor (which had been smothered beneath a pumpkin-colored rug), and are adding new stained glass windows.

Volunteer Donna Olswing (yes, the niece of the comedic Ellyn) is applying her green thumb to the chain link fence that separates the graveyard from the boulevard. She has planted crossvine that she says will transform the fence into a "green wall," with "beautiful orange trumpet flowers that the butterflies and hummingbirds will just love."

One of the most loyal volunteers from among the synagogue's 225 members is longtime second-generation Anshei Sphard Cemetery supervisor Bob Bernatsky, 91. He said he makes sure the grass stays cut and that the stones are upright, especially when it's time for one of the 13 to 14 funerals the cemetery hosts each year.

"We try to hold the number down," he said. "We tell everybody to stay well."

Bernatsky said he expects to be more than a cemetery volunteer some day: He and his 93-year-old wife, Leatrice, have what he calls "reserved plots."

"I tell everybody I got a condominium on Airways. It's a 3-by-6, and it's unfurnished."

Harkavy said she's no longer reluctant to join Bernatsky, Moses Sax and the rest, thanks to the cemetery-and-chapel makeover. "I am now comfortable with the idea of being there myself, and I feel like that's a good standard."