Old Jewish cemetery, Chambersburg
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The Old Jewish Cemetery of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania is believed to be the earliest burial ground of the Jewish minority west of the Susquehanna River. The oldest headstone refers to a burial in July 1840. At that time only a handful of Jewish families, mostly recent immigrants from Germany, lived in the small towns and villages of south-central Pennsylvania and adjoining counties of Maryland.
As there was no organized Jewish community life anywhere in the area until late in the 19th century, the Jewish burial society (Chevra kadisha), which administered the Chambersburg cemetery, was the main organizational structure of the Jewish minority in south-central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. Among those who buried their dead in Chambersburg were the Jewish inhabitants of Hagerstown, Carlisle and Mechanicsburg.
Around 1900 the burial society dissolved, and the cemetery fell into disrepair and dilapidation. It was restored in 1988, and again in 2000.
