Willet Street Cemetery was Cleveland's first Jewish cemetery.

In 1840, a year after arriving from Unsleben, Bavaria, Cleveland's first Jews formed a mutual benefit society, the Israelitic Society. Soon they would face a need for a Jewish cemetery, but not because one of their members had died. A Jew passing through had the misfortune to fall ill and die here. The small society stepped up to its sacred duty to provide the man a Jewish burial.

They tried to buy land in the Erie (East 9th) Street Cemetery, in walking distance of the Jewish community, but were turned down by City Council. more (ECH) ...

(For an example of community acceptance just a few years later, see our Great Gift page.)

For $100 they bought from Josiah Barber an acre of land on the west side of the Cuyahoga River (then Ohio City). Today it is just north of I-90, where Fulton Road (the new name of Willet Street) and Monroe Avenue intersect. The address is 2254 Fulton Road.  view map  view deed.

The Israelitic Society soon became Congregation Anshe Chesed. In 1850 many members left and formed Tifereth Israel. That year they bought a 1/2 acre lot next to the Anshe Chesed cemetery, though there would be a fence between the two burial areas. In those early years both congregations followed Orthodox customs and burials were open to nonmembers.

Both parts of the Willet Street cemeteries are now owned and maintained by United Jewish Cemeteries, which also owns Mayfield Cemetery. Though headstones will be found for burials as late as the 1950s, Willet Street Cemetery is not completely full, as many graves have been moved to Mayfield Cemetery.