The Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries are a group of 42 Jewish cemeteries [1] in use since the 1920s on Baker Street in the West Roxbury section of Boston. The cemeteries are located on land that once formed part of Brook Farm, a 19th-century communal-living experiment.
The series of small cemeteries are strung along both sides of a narrow access road at 776 Baker Street [1] that leads only to the last of the small cemeteries. Each was owned and managed by an individual Boston-area congregation or Jewish organization. [2]
According to The Boston Globe , "the Baker Street cemeteries are home to some of the city's most striking, albeit endangered, examples of historic religious architecture. Dotting the road are 10 chapel buildings about the size of one-room schoolhouses, perfectly rendered synagogues in miniature, with glorious stained glass, vaulted ceilings, ornate chandeliers, oak pulpits, and other vestiges of the final destination for members of a once-thriving immigrant community." [3]
Over the years, many of the small congregations that supported several sections of the cemeteries have dissolved as the leadership passed on and there were no young members to take their places. In the late 1980s, after several years of neglect, the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts (JCAM) was granted the rights to the abandoned cemeteries so that they could be restored and maintained, and have plots made available for new interments.
The 42 cemeteries are:
Congregation Beth Elohim, also known as the Garfield Temple and the Eighth Avenue Temple, is a Reform Jewish congregation located at 274 Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, United States.
Nahum Mattathias Sarna was a modern biblical scholar who is best known for the study of Genesis and Exodus represented in his Understanding Genesis (1966) and in his contributions to the first two volumes of the JPS Torah Commentary (1989/91). He was also part of the translation team for the Kethuvim section of the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Bible, known as New Jewish Publication Society of America Version.
Congregation Beth Israel is an egalitarian Conservative congregation located at 15 Jamesbury Drive in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1924 as an Orthodox synagogue, it formally affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 1949, and describes itself as the "leading Conservative congregation in Central Massachusetts."
Congregation Beth Israel "House of Israel" is an Orthodox synagogue located at 10 Dexter Street in Malden, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1904 by Jewish immigrants from Lithuania.
Beth Israel Congregation is a Reform Jewish congregation located at 5315 Old Canton Road in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Organized in 1860 by Jews of German background, it has always been, and remains, the only Jewish synagogue in Jackson. Beth Israel built the first synagogue in Mississippi in 1867, and, after it burned down, its 1874 replacement was at one time the oldest religious building in Jackson.
Congregation Beth Israel is a Jewish congregation located at 53 Lois Street in North Adams, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded in the early 1890s as House of Israel by Eastern European Jews recently immigrated to the United States. The Chevre Chai Odom congregation broke away from House of Israel in 1905, but re-united with it in 1958, and the congregation adopted its current name in 1961.
Temple Beth Israel is a Reform synagogue located at One Bowman Street in Plattsburgh, New York. Established in 1861, it served Plattsburgh's Jewish population and itinerant Jewish tradesmen in the region. After worshiping in temporary locations, the congregation acquired its first permanent home on Oak Street in 1866. Beth Israel adopted Reform services in 1910, and joined the Union for Reform Judaism in 1913.
The history of the Jews in Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada has been noted since the mid-19th century.
Shaarai Torah Synagogue is an historic former synagogue building at 32 Providence Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester's first Modern Orthodox "shul", Shaarai Torah was considered the city's "Mother Synagogue" for many years.
Temple House of Israel is a Jewish congregation in Staunton, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1876 by Major Alexander Hart, it originally held services in members' homes, then moved to a building on Kalorama street in 1885, the year it joined the Union for Reform Judaism.
Congregation Beth Israel of Houston, the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas, was founded in Houston in 1854. It operates the Shlenker School.
Temple Emanuel Sinai is a medium-sized Reform (progressive) Jewish synagogue located in Worcester, Massachusetts, New England's second largest city.
Temple Anshe Amunim is a Reform synagogue located at 26 Broad Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded by German Jewish immigrants in 1869 as Orthodox, but adopted Reform practice in 1879. It is the second-oldest Reform congregation in the United States and its temple is the oldest synagogue edifice in Western Massachusetts. In 1904, Anshe Amunim joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. It is also affiliated with the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires.
Temple Israel is a Reform congregation located at 130 Riverside Drive in Dayton, Ohio. Formed in 1850, it incorporated as "Kehillah Kodesh B'nai Yeshurun" in 1854. After meeting in rented quarters, the congregation purchased its first synagogue building, a former Baptist church at 4th and Jefferson, in 1863. Strongly influenced by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, it rapidly modernized its services, and, in 1873, was a founding member of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Jews have been living in Maine, a state in the northeastern United States, for 200 years, with significant Jewish communities in Bangor as early as the 1840s and in Portland since the 1880s. The arrival of Susman Abrams in 1785 was followed by a history of immigration and settlement that parallels the history of Jewish immigration to the United States.
The Temple Beth Israel Cemetery, also known as the Hebrew Cemetery, is a Jewish cemetery located at 420 North West Avenue in Jackson, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Louis Weissbein (1831-1913) was a German-born American architect practicing in Boston, Massachusetts.