Amy Goldman / Friends of B’nai David Cemetery
B’nai David
Cemetery
before the
cleanup
6353 Orchard Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield Twp., MI 48322
248-851-1260
Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm
Saturday 10am – 5:30pm
Sunday 12pm – 4pm
The community has worked for several years to maintain the historic cemetery.
Historic Designation
Detroit cemetery earns special
distinction from the city.
B
’nai David Cemetery was
granted historical status by the
Detroit City Council last week.
“This protects the cemetery from
any future development and honors it
as a place of historical significance,”
said David Goldman of Farmington
Hills, whose daughter Eva spurred the
idea for the cemetery cleanup dur-
ing an annual visit to the grave of her
great-great-grandmother in 2014.
The abandoned cemetery had been
overgrown by weeds. Garbage littered
the ground, and many of the head-
stones had fallen over when Eva orga-
nized the first cemetery cleanup. Since
then, local Jewish Detroiters volunteer
their time cleaning up the cemetery a
few times a year (including last week
during JFS’ Fall Fix Up).
B’nai David Cemetery, one of
Detroit’s oldest Jewish cemeteries, is
located on Van Dyke between Harper
and McNichols in Detroit. It was orga-
nized in 1897 as Beth David Cemetery
and incorporated on July 7, 1903. The
cemetery has approximately 1,300
interments, the first in 1903.
The cemetery fell into neglect as
Detroit’s Jewish residents were relocat-
ing to the suburbs. In the mid-1950s,
B’nai David Synagogue relocated to
Oakland County. Today, the congrega-
tion no longer exists.
Goldman formed the Friends of
B’nai David Cemetery, which works to
raise money for an endowment to pay
for basic maintenance at the cemetery.
“The goal is to make the cemetery
safer and more accessible so people
feel comfortable visiting the graves
of their family members when they
want,” Goldman said.
The last burial in the cemetery took
place in 2015. Betty (Levine) Weiss,
who died March 15, 2015, requested
to be buried beside her late husband,
Sidney David Weiss, who died 38
years prior.
Goldman has a list of names of
those buried in the cemetery.
“It has become incumbent upon
the Detroit Jewish community to
clean up this cemetery and continue
maintenance for generations to come,”
Goldman said.
The historical designation from the
city recognizes the cemetery’s “unique
contribution to a sense of place in the
community.”
Detroit contains roughly 130 desig-
nated historic sites.
*
Keep up to date on what’s happening at B’nai
David by following Friends of B’nai David
Cemetery on Facebook.
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November 10 • 2016
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