Marker Text - Courtesy of the Comstock Foundation:
The Jewish Cemetery - Virginia City 1862
The Jewish cemetery is located a few miles north of where you stand. It was the norm for organizations to have separate cemeteries. However the commonalities of the Comstock population are of more significance than separatism. Like their neighbors, the Jewish immigrants were attracted by financial opportunities, they experienced high infant mortality, contributed to local economy and government, and viewed their cemetery as a societal obligation.
In the early 1860's, the B'nai B'rith Lodge 52, a Jewish fraternal group, was established and in all probability was responsible for the Jewish cemetery. A local newspaper of the times notes, "...this is a very handsome plat of ground, nicely cleaned off and substantially fenced..." Adella Adler and Aaron Korn, both children were the first burials.
In the mid-1960's a hate crime left the cemetery with one marker out of twenty-four interments. In 2002 the Comstock Cemetery Foundation fenced the property and the two Reno synagogues re-dedicated the site.
The Jewish cemetery stands today as simultaneously a reminder of American Western diversity, and a disgrace upon those with no tolerance for that diversity.
2015 - Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
Comstock Cemetery Foundation
