From: Brian Schnitzer
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:46 PM
Subject: MAJCo – Jewish Cemeteries In Montana

Last week the Montana Historical Society sponsored, with the help of National Park Service funding, a seminar on cemetery preservation. Helena’s Home of Peace cemetery featured significantly in several of the presentations and was one of the stops on the Helena historic cemeteries tour.

Home of Peace, owned and managed by the Home of Peace Cemetery Association, was established in 1867. It is Helena’s oldest active cemetery and the oldest Jewish cemetery in Montana.

(Papers exist suggesting as the Virginia City mining camp prepared to become an organized town in the mid-1860’s, its founders designated an area in its planned cemetery as “The Hebrew Cemetery.” There are no monuments in the designated area and no documentation of its having ever been purchased by any Jewish community. Although Ground Penetrating Radar suggests many internments, it is thought the area was used by Virginia City for mass burials during one of its later epidemics.)

I, therefore, know only the particulars of two specifically Jewish cemeteries in Montana. I believe we also have cemeteries in Butte and Great Falls, but I do not know their particulars. If you are aware of additional active or inactive Jewish cemeteries, please reply with that information. “Reply All,” so the information can be shared and not duplicated.

Beth Aaron Cemetery
Active
Congregation Beth Aaron
Billings

Home of Peace
Active
Home of Peace Cemetery Association
Helena