Waad Hakolel (Stonewood Avenue) and Britton Road Cemetery Records

In the late 19th century, Rochester’s rapidly growing Jewish population led members of the community to create two dedicated Jewish cemeteries. Both cemeteries were located on the Rochester/Greece boundary, west of the Genesee River. The larger cemetery, on Britton Road, consisted of 25 small cemeteries each owned by a specific congregation, family, or fraternal organization for the benefit of its members. In 1954, they consolidated operations as the Britton Road Association, which has since overseen the maintenance of the cemetery.

Slightly to south, a smaller Jewish cemetery was developed on Stone Road by Waad Hakolel, a large Orthodox Jewish congregation with a synagogue on Baden Street. Founded in 1895, and purchasing the cemetery land that same year, Waad Hakolel initially had over 700 members. By 1960, only 70 members remained, and the congregation willingly sold its synagogue to the City of Rochester to be demolished as part of the Baden-Ormond Urban Renewal project. With this, Waad Hakolel ceased to exist as a congregation, but the Vaad Hakolel Cemetery Association remained, providing a burial place for former congregants and members of the association. (Note: The proper spelling of the synagogue was Waad Hakolel, but the 1895 incorporation papers for the cemetery used Vaad Haklolel, and this spelling difference persisted throughout the organizations’ existences.)

With revenue declining, the Vaad Hakolel Cemetery Association became a member of the Britton Road Association in 1976, with the latter taking over maintenance and funerary operations at Vaad Hakolel. Vaad Haklolel paid dues to the Britton Road Association for these services, along with paying all taxes and utilities on the property. Even this arrangement could not last, with Vaad Hakolel’s income stream failing through few sales of plots and the inability to bill for annual maintenance costs to family members of the deceased as they moved away from Rochester. Ultimately, in 2018, the Vaad Hakolel executive board elected to dissolve and transfer title to the Stone Road property to the Britton Road Association, which now (2024) operates the cemetery.