Winding My Way Through the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries

From Dave Brigham:

While researching online for places to explore along Boston's Blue Hill Avenue, which runs through the Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods, I stumbled across mention of the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries in the city's West Roxbury neighborhood. I'd driven past the cemeteries numerous times over the past two decades, but had no idea of their history, architecture and layout.

Established in the 1920s on land that was once part of Brook Farm, a 19th century utopian communal living site whose founders included author Nathaniel Hawthorne, the cemeteries were necessary for the burgeoning Jewish population along Blue Hill Avenue, according to this 2014 Times of Israel article.

"Situated along a three-mile stretch of Blue Hill Avenue, the Jews of Roxbury and Dorchester had migrated from Boston’s cramped, central quarters – the so-called 'Ends' – to try their hands in a suburb," according to the Times article. "Jewish housing – mostly wooden triple-deckers and aging Victorians – was clustered around Franklin Park, where thousands of Jews spent Shabbat in the rose garden. The neighborhood’s turn-of-the-century boom paralleled increased immigration of Jews from the Pale of Settlement in Russia and Poland, as well as expanded electric street car service. Here, between Dorchester Bay and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace park system, an ephemeral Jewish community helped popularize both Conservative Judaism and Zionism, even as it broke with religious tradition."

I haven't gotten to Blue Hill Avenue yet, but I was so intrigued by the idea of poking around a complex that "includes 42 separate burial grounds for various synagogues, labor groups and other affiliations," that I headed to Baker Street the next opportunity I had.

The Baker Street burial grounds are operated by the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts (JCAM). From MACRIS: "Between 1928 and 1958, chapels were built for 22 congregations or cemetery associations. Although primarily from Boston, namely Dorchester and Roxbury, one association was from Quincy and anther from Chelsea. The chapels are all one story, brick with hipped or gabled roofs....Contrasting bricks are also used to create Star of David motifs in side walls. Some chapels retain stained glass windows. Chapels generally were designed by Boston architectural firms, some executing plans for more than one congregation. The following firms designed at least two chapels each: Samuel S. Eisenberg and/or his partner Herman I. Feer (1929, 1941, 1944); Manning Waters (1930s); Saul E. Moffie (late 1930s); Meyer Louis (1937); Winebaum and Wexler (1940s); Arthur Resenstein (1940s and 1950s)."

I hiked in the back way through the Brook Farm walking trail, and felt like an interloper most of the time I was exploring there. I'm not Jewish, and didn't want any of the people I passed on foot and in cars to think I was disrespecting the site by taking photos and reading plaques and gravestones. I'm used to exploring old Colonial graveyards in New England, where nobody has been buried in decades, and few people are walking around. Nobody seemed bothered by the fact that I was there, thankfully.

The Times of Israel article dates to 2014, and features photos of the inside of some of the abandoned chapels once used regularly by the various groups that operated burial grounds. If I'd come across one that seemed easy to access, I'm not sure I would've ventured inside. Seeing them from the outside, some more obviously well taken care of than others, and still in use, was good enough for me.

I started at the Sons of Abraham chapel, which is one of the more pristine buildings on the grounds.

I'm not at all spiritual, and my knowledge of the history of any religion is quite weak, so I have to rely on Wikipedia, which informs me that Abraham was quite a complicated and seemingly omnipresent person in the ancient times. "Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad."

I was quite taken by the various entry gates in the cemetery, starting with the one for the American Friendship Cemetery Association.

The association is based in Quincy, Mass., and is a mutual/membership benefit organization. While the JCAM maintains most, if not all, of the small burial grounds at Baker Street, at least some of the founding organizations still exist in some form, from what I've been able to determine.

The entry for the Ostro Hebrew Marshoe Cemetery Association is similar to the AFCA's.

The Ostro Hebrew Marshoe Society merged with JCAM in 1984.

The Kaminker Cemetery Corp.'s chapel was built in 1938. I wish the original doors were still in place.

The Lord Rothschild Cemetery Association was named, I presume, for Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, of the well-known banking family. "In 1885, Rothschild became a member of the House of Lords when he was created Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom," according to Wikipedia. "He was also a hereditary Freiherr (baron) of the Austrian Empire, a noble title that he had inherited via his father. In 1838, Queen Victoria had authorized the use of this Austrian title in the United Kingdom. When he was raised to the peerage by [William Ewart] Gladstone, Rothschild was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords not to have previously converted to Christianity."

The gate and fence were presented by the Lord Rothschild Ladies Auxiliary, per the plaque shown below.

The Pultusker Cemetery Association, which built its chapel in 1943, is now known as the Greater Boston Benevolent Cemetery Association.

The Atereth Israel Cemetery Association built its chapel in 1949.

Based in Newton, Congregation Beth El-Atereth Israel is still active as it "represents a continuation of two congregations founded in the 1800’s in the Dorchester area of Boston," per the linked web site. I wrote about the congregation as part of my series about the villages of Newton (see March 27, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 1)".

The Atereth cemetery was formerly known as the Moreland Street Cemetery. The Moreland Street Historic District "is...roughly bounded by Kearsarge, Blue Hill Avenues, and Warren, Waverly, and Winthrop Streets in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston...." per Wikipedia. "It encompasses 63 acres of predominantly residential urban streetscape, which was developed between about 1840 and 1920."

The Zviller Cemetery features yet another beautiful entryway.

At the back of this cemetery, as you may be able to see in the photo above, I spied a small brick building that I needed to check out.

"Pretty small for a chapel," I thought to myself. I had no idea what this little structure's purpose might be, until I posted some photos from Baker Street on Instagram. One of my IG followers teased me with, "If you think the small empty chapels are fascinating, do you know about genizahs?"

Again, from Wikipedia: "A genizah...is a storage area in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery designated for the temporary storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper cemetery burial."

Fascinating. I'm not sure whether other religious denominations make use of these types of buildings. I've certainly not seen any in Catholic cemeteries I've visited.

While I was quite taken with all of the chapels and genizahs (I found one other, which is featured at the bottom of this post) and entryways, I was most enamored of the David Vicur Choulim Cemetery's features.

I wasn't able to find out much about this organization, other than that it appears to have been formed in 1869 in Boston.

The Ahavis Achim Anshi Koretz Cemetery Corporation chapel, built in 1935, is in good condition. The organization still exists in Newton, listed on Buzzfile as operating in "the Cemetery Subdividers and Developers business / industry within the Real Estate sector" since 2011.

The Quincy Hebrew Cemetery Society opened its chapel in 1939. The organization restored its cemetery in 2008 after years of neglect, according to this article from that year in The Patriot Ledger.

The Staro-Konstantinov Progressive Cemetery Association's gate looks new and made to last.

I'm not sure whether the association was founded in 1937, or if that's when the cemetery was started. The group is named for a city currently in Ukraine that was once part of Poland and then the Soviet Union, according to this Jewish Virtual Library article. If you want to know more, read that article, as things get pretty convoluted.

The ivy clinging to the Anshei Sfard chapel adds a touch of mystery, but the Star of David, the name of the organization and the built date still shine through.

I believe that this chapel was owned (and may still be) by Congregation Agudas Achim Anshei Sfard, which is located in the Nonantum neighborhood of Newton, aka the Adams Street Shul. "The Adams Street Shul was founded by Jews who came to Newton primarily from Ukraine at the turn of the 20th century," according to the congregation's web site. "By 1901, at least half of the Jewish families arriving in Newton had settled in the Nonantum section of the city. After many years of davening in people's homes and in other larger and rented spaces, it became clear that the community required a formal synagogue. On October 6, 1911, Congregation Agudas Achim Anshei Sfard was granted an official charter by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. On December 15, 1912, three days after the end of Chanukah, the building itself was officially opened on Adams Street and formally dedicated with great fanfare and celebration."

I included the shul, which still has an active congregation, in one of the segments of my project to document all of the villages of Newton (see November 15, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 3)".

The Immigrants Mutual Aid Society doesn't have a fancy entryway, but I like it nonetheless.

As with many of the other cemeteries, this one was founded during the Holocaust, in this case, 1938. I couldn't help but think of that horrible chapter of world history as I strolled through the Baker Street cemeteries. As for the Immigrants Mutual Aid Society, it "was founded in 1938 by a group of Central European refugees, to ease immigrants' adjustment to the economic, spiritual, cultural, and social life of the American community and to provide mutual assistance to its members and aid to other immigrants," according to The Wyner Fanily Jewish Heritage Center, which is part of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. "IMAS's original purpose was to assist refugees from Nazi persecution. In early years, IMAS was primarily concerned with securing affidavits for émigrés, and providing them with English lessons, as well as assisting them in finding jobs and homes."

I'm guessing that many, if not most, of the organizations that once owned these cemeteries acted in similar ways for Jewish immigrants.

The gate post opposite the one for the Immigrants Mutual Aid Society was erected by the Roxbury Lodge Cemetery Association in 1939.

I've been unable to find out anything about the Roxbury organization.

The Or Emet Cemetery and Temple Emeth Memorial Park is more modern than the others, but quite lovely.

The park was established in 1958 by Temple Emeth, which was founded in 1939 in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Brookline, according to the congregation's web site. The cemetery was dedicated in 2012.

Established on land donated by Joseph and Dora Richards in 1929, the Hebrew Ladies Home for the Aged Cemetery is now known as the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center Cemetery.

Founded in 1903 as the Hebrew Moshav Zekainim Association, the Hebrew Ladies' Home for the Aged Association operated a facility on Queen Street in Dorchester. In 1963, the group moved to a new facility in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood and changed its name to Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged. The organization is now known as Hebrew Senior Life.

The Mohliver Cemetery Association chapel is somewhat more imposing than the others, and is a bit funky architecturally, but still I like it.

I've been unable to find out anything about this association, which may be named for Samuel Mohilever, "a rabbi, pioneer of Religious Zionism and one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion movement," according to Wikipedia.

I was quite surprised in the middle of so many Jewish cemeteries, to see a sign for a historic Christian site.

Pulpit Rock is where Rev. John Eliot allegedly preached to Native Americans in the 1640s as part of his three-decade effort to convert them to Christianity. Eliot "also established 14 Christian Indian communities in Massachusetts," according to this B.U. Bridge article. "Although his sermons at these settlements are well documented, there is no written record of Eliot's preaching to Indians in West Roxbury. Nonetheless, the 'Pulpit Rock' story became legendary when it was told in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Blithedale Romance, which was based on the author's experience at a utopian farming community there."

The last part of that quote references Brook Farm, which is also cited on the sign. I could see the rock through the trees, but chose not to explore further. In late 2021, I wrote about a memorial to Eliot located in Newton Corner (see December 18, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 2)."

The final stop on my tour was the Agudath Israel Cemetery Association burial ground.

Agudath Israel was "founded in 1922 to serve as Orthodox Jewry’s umbrella organization," per the group's web site, and "is the arm and voice of American Orthodox Jewry. With national and DC offices, and regional branches serving the entire country, Agudath Israel...advocates for its constituents at federal, state, and local levels. The Agudah and its many divisions provide social, educational, and youth services to its constituents, continuing a century-long tradition of championing the evolving needs of Orthodox Jewish life in America."

I really like the colored glass in the chapel's windows, which were installed in memory of certain parishioners.

On my way back to the Brook Farm trail, I spied another genizah.

I'm glad I finally ventured into the cemeteries to learn about some history of Boston's Jewish population and some of the groups that once operated burial grounds here. Prior to my visit to Baker Street, my favorite local cemetery was Holyhood in Brookline (see July 30, 2022, "Finding Color Amid the Gray at Holyhood Cemetery").

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