Sunday, November 15, 2026
A small burial ground established by some of Long Island's earliest Jewish residents was recognized for its 150-year history on Oct. 18, when the Jewish Historical Society of Long Island and Bellmore’s Congregation Beth Ohr unveiled a historical marker at Breslau Cemetery in Lindenhurst.
About 30 people attended the ceremony, including congregation members and descendants of those buried there. The blue-and-gold marker, bearing the name of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, recognizes the cemetery’s establishment and the organizations that maintained it over the following decades.
During the unveiling, Brad Kolodny, president of the Jewish Historical Society of Long Island, welcomed attendees, Rabbi Sara Birnbaum of Beth Ohr shared a psalm, and Lindenhurst Mayor Michael Lavorata and Beth Ohr congregant Alan Housman offered remarks. Hausman helps oversee the cemetery and maintains contact with families connected to the former Lindenhurst congregation.
The cemetery's history dates to Oct. 2, 1876, when four Jewish men — Bernard Jonas of Wantagh, Morris Miller of Freeport, and Hermann Rosenstein and Simon Spitz, both of what is now Lindenhurst — pooled their resources to purchase a half-acre of land for Jewish burials in what was then known as Breslau. Before its establishment, Jewish families generally had to travel to Queens or Brooklyn to bury their loved ones.
Kolodny said the cemetery is the oldest surviving remnant of Jewish communal life on Long Island. It was established two decades before the region’s first purpose-built synagogue opened in Setauket in 1896.
“A lot of people think that Jews only came to Long Island after World War II,” Kolodny said. “There was a significant Jewish population on Long Island even before World War One, and people just don't really know about it.”
The cemetery’s establishment followed the formation of a congregation by German Jewish immigrants in Breslau in 1875. Jewish communities expanded in the following decades as Eastern European immigrants arrived, many finding work as merchants, peddlers and factory workers.
The cemetery remains active today under the care of Beth Ohr, which inherited responsibility through a series of synagogue mergers. The Lindenhurst Hebrew Congregation assumed responsibility in 1934 and merged with Congregation Beth-El in Massapequa in 2006. Beth-El subsequently merged with Bellmore Jewish Center in 2016, becoming Congregation Beth Ohr.
The connection extends beyond the cemetery. The doors of the Torah ark in Beth Ohr’s sanctuary came from the former Lindenhurst synagogue, preserving a physical piece of its history within the Bellmore congregation.
Birnbaum, who joined Beth Ohr in July, said preserving the cemetery allows the congregation to honor the communities that came before it.
“For us to have a connection to the Jewish history of Long Island is very special,” Birnbaum said. “Our congregation can kind of carry on those memories and that legacy here at Beth Ohr.”
Growing up outside Boston, Birnbaum recalled her grandmother pointing out former synagogues and family homes connected to generations of their relatives. Many of those places are no longer marked, leaving their histories dependent on personal memories.
“The history without marking something can get lost unless people make a concerted effort on their own,” she said.
The congregation's preservation efforts extend beyond the cemetery. Beginning in January, Beth Ohr plans to launch Project Zachor, an initiative in which teenagers will photograph and digitize memorial plaques inherited from former congregations, helping descendants research their family histories.
For Kolodny, the historical marker is part of a broader effort to ensure that Long Island's early Jewish communities are not forgotten.
“It's about Jewish identity and about knowing the history of our community,” he said.
