About: Washington Cemetery (Brooklyn)

Washington Cemetery is an historical and predominantly Jewish burial ground located at 5400 Bay Parkway in Mapleton, Brooklyn, New York, United States. Founded in Kings County in 1850, outside the independent city of Brooklyn, it became a Jewish burial ground as early as 1857, at first serving primarily German Jewish immigrants. Brooklyn cemeteries were authorized under the Rural Cemetery Act of 1847, which allowed for the construction of commercial cemeteries outside what were then city limits. This part of Kings County was not yet incorporated into the City of Brooklyn, and the legislation resulted in the development of several large parcels of farmland as cemeteries. Later in the 19th and early 20th centuries most Jewish immigrants came from the Russian Empire and eastern Europe.