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I

n the last almost-decade, the state of 
the B’nai David cemetery has greatly 
improved, but it still has an uncer-
tain future. 
Back in 2014, the cemetery, locat-
ed on Van Dyke on the East Side of 
Detroit, had fallen into disrepair when 
Eva Goldman of Farmington Hills sug-
gested cleaning up the cemetery for her 
bat mitzvah project. Twenty-five family 
members turned up to help and real-
ized the project was much bigger than 
they imagined. At that point, her father, 
David Goldman, took it on as his own 
crusade. 
Goldman spoke to the last B’nai 
David congregant to take care of the 
cemetery, Sol Chudnow, who’
d been 
single-handedly trying to take care of 
the cemetery himself. Chudnow passed 
away in 2017.
“Sol agreed to give me the key and 
signed over the bank account, which 
comprised of $14,
” Goldman said. “I 
reconstituted a board of directors and 
using the 501c3, began raising money 
… Each year, I’
d raise just enough to cut 
the grass.
”
One person he turned to was Hadar 
Grenadier, a former con-
gregant of B’nai David 
whose wife’s family had 
been involved in the con-
gregation for more than 
100 years.
“I don’t physically do a 
lot but I’m happy to give 
or raise funds,
” Grenadier 
said. “If we can’t take care of the people 
who passed away, to me that’s a blemish 
on the Jewish population.
” 
Before Goldman took the reins, the 
gated cemetery was locked and there 
was no clear way to get in. Goldman 
began officially opening the cemetery to family members twice 
yearly — around Rosh Hashanah and on Mother’s Day — and 
made himself available to unlock the cemetery at personal request 
by appointment. 
Goldman also organized several community clean ups and 
volunteer groups, which had great participation until COVID hit. 
Since then, there have been only occasional smaller groups coming 
in to help. Still, the cemetery, which was granted historical status by 
the city of Detroit in 2016, has seen other improvements recently. 

CHRONICLING HISTORY
During COVID, Ann Zaron, 75, of Farmington Hills took on a new 
hobby — photographing headstones. 
She’
d mostly been to Hebrew Memorial on Gratiot, but decided 
to try the B’nai David cemetery, where her aunt was buried. To her 
surprise, not only was it open, but Goldman was there, and the two 
struck up a conversation. 

“I told David, ‘I’m available if you 
need a secretary,
’ and he corrected me, 
‘They call them admins now,
’” remem-
bered Zaron. “I explained that I love 
documentation and data entry … and 
David said, ‘Oh, could I use your help.
”
Zaron has been a staple at B’nai 
David cemetery ever since and visits 
about three times a week. She sin-
gle-handedly cleaned the entire back of 
the cemetery, picking up the trash and 
branches. 
“It’s David who’s really cleaned it up. 
He has a vision and I’m just trying to 
help him,
” Zaron said. “Now the weeds 
are under control, the grass is cut, the 
trees are trimmed. If you went there 
today, you’
d say it was beautiful!”
The first burial at the cemetery 
was in 1903, and some of those older 
headstones are now illegible. Zaron has 
painstakingly gone through the graves, 
documenting who is buried where and 
making sure each has at minimum a 
plaque with a name and age of death. 
In doing so, she also found additional 
graves that were previously unaccount-
ed for in the congregation’s records. 
“When I first got the list from David, 
it was pretty weak. It had maybe 1,300 
graves listed, and things didn’t always 
add up,
” Zaron explained. “My aunt said 
a relative was buried there, but there 
was no record of her. I found 144 addi-
tional graves in the cemetery. That was 
exciting! My goal is to have everyone 
accounted for.
”
Zaron uploaded her pictures of all 
the headstones on findagrave.com, an 
online database of cemetery records 
owned by ancestry.com. She’s sure 
that there are relatives out there who 
were delighted to find these previously 
unknown graves online. 
Not only does Zaron document the 
graves, she also tries to learn the stories of the people buried there, 
pulling information from dusty records and old newspapers and 
uploads that information, too. For example, she discovered that one 
child was killed by a streetcar and another little girl was accidentally 
shot by a cousin. 
“I talk to the children in the cemetery, say hi to them. Now I 
know some of their stories and that makes me feel closer to them. If 
their family doesn’t come to visit them, at least I do,
” Zaron said. 
About seven years ago, Goldman discovered that an unpaid stor-
age unit in Detroit held relics from the B’nai David congregation.
Goldman cleared it out. “It was mostly siddurim and haggadot, 
but there was also a yahrzheit box, plaques which had hung on the 
synagogue,
” said Goldman. He made efforts to locate the family 
members and began returning these plaques one by one. There are 
still about 500 left.

Hadar 
Grenadier 

David 
Goldman

ELAYNE GROSS

Ann Zaron by 
headstones she’s 
documented.

