Michigan's Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Beth El, the first Jewish congregation in Michigan, was organized in Detroit on September 22, 1850, by twelve families. This half-acre cemetery, dedicated on January 1, 1851, was known then as “The Champlain Street Cemetery of Temple Beth El” because Lafayette was formerly called Champlain Street. The first interment was in fall of 1851, and in 1854 Samuel Marcus, the first rabbi of Beth El, was buried here. The cemetery, containing many graves of Jewish war veterans, was in active use until the 1950s.