The Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries are a group of 42 Jewish cemeteries
in use since the 1920s on Baker Street in the
West Roxbury
West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts bordered by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain to the northeast, the town of Brookline to the north, the cities and towns of Newton and Needham to the northwest and the town of Dedham to the ...
section of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. The cemeteries are located on land that once formed part of
Brook Farm
Brook Farm, also called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and EducationFelton, 124 or the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education,Rose, 140 was a utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. It was f ...
, 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
[ that leads only to the last of the small cemeteries. Each was owned and managed by an individual Boston-area congregation or Jewish organization.
According to '']The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', "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."
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.
Notable burials
* Michael Hammer, engineer and professor of computer science
* Johnny Most
John M. Most (June 15, 1923 – January 3, 1993) was an American sports announcer, known primarily as the raspy radio voice of the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association from 1953 to 1990.
Most's radio call during the final momen ...
, sports announcer
* Nahum M. Sarna
Nahum Mattathias Sarna (Hebrew: נחום סרנא; March 27, 1923 – June 23, 2005) 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 t ...
, biblical scholar
* Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik ( he, יוסף דב הלוי סולובייצ׳יק ''Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveychik''; February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993) was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion ...
, American Orthodox rabbi
Cemeteries of Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries
The 42 cemeteries are:
* Abramson
* Agudath Israel
* American Friendship
* Anshe Sfard
* Atereth Israel
* Beth El
* Boylston Lodge
* Butrimantzy
* Chevra Shaas
* Crawford Street Memorial Park
* Custom Tailors
* David Vicur Cholim
* Hebrew Rehabilitation Center
* Hebrew Volin
* Imas-Roxbury Lodge
* Independent Pride of Boston
* Independent Workmen's Circle
* Kaminker
* Kehillath Jacob
* Kopaigorod
* Koretzer
* Kovner
* Lawrence Avenue
* Lord Rothschild
* Mohliver
* New Palestine
* Olita
* Ostro Marshoe
* Polonnoe
* Pulpit Rock
* Pultusker
* Puritan
* Quincy Hebrew
* Shara Tfilo
* Shepetovka
* Sons of Abraham
* Staro Konstatinov
* Stepiner
* Temple Emeth (two separated parcels)
* Vilno
* Temple Beth Zion on Zviller site
* Zviller
See also
* List of cemeteries in Boston, Massachusetts
References
Cemetery Detail Map
External links
Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts
{{coord, 42.293, N, 71.177, W, region:US_type:landmark, display=title
Jewish cemeteries in Massachusetts
Jews and Judaism in Boston
Cemeteries in Boston
West Roxbury