‘A living place’: Historic cemetery preserves memories of Jewish life in Fort Worth
In the heart of Fort Worth’s Near Southside, memories of many Jewish lives echo throughout a 1-acre cemetery.
A co-founder of luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus.
Soldiers from the Confederate and Union armies.
Leah Kaiser, a 4-year-old girl who was the first person laid to rest there.
About 400 stories converge at Emanuel Hebrew Rest, established as Fort Worth’s first Jewish cemetery in 1879. The land, which was deeded to the Jewish community by John Peter Smith, is now surrounded by the growing medical district, including the county hospital system named for Smith, one of Fort Worth’s founding fathers.
Despite the growth around the historic site — including an incoming $1.5 billion hospital — the cemetery has become a touchstone for Fort Worth’s Jewish communities.
As one of three Jewish cemeteries in the city, Emanuel Hebrew Rest is now rarely used, said Daniel J. “Red” Goldstein, the sole Beth-El Congregation member overseeing the cemetery. Needed graves are dug by hand and shovel because excavators can’t be brought on-site.
Ben Levy’s grave and tombstone in the Emanuel Hebrew Rest Cemetery on May 5, 2026. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)
About 50 spaces remain available for interment. More stories can congregate immemorially at Emanuel Hebrew Rest if they so choose.
Despite a future that can still be had, Goldstein, 72, worries about the cemetery’s preservation once he can no longer fill the role.
“All we can do is press our cultural wishes to the next generation by being good stewards of what we have,” Goldstein said.
A museum, library of local Jewish history
Clad in a tan sunhat, shorts and a light blue button-down shirt, Goldstein walks through rows of headstones in various shapes and sizes. Some lay flat on the grass. Some, in the shape of pillars, reach for the blue sky. A singular mausoleum. Some gravesites have no headstones at all.
Goldstein knows who is where — and their stories. The Fort Worth native got involved in the cemetery in 2017, following the sale of his business and the death of his mother, he said.
The cemetery’s oversight committee, which started with about four people, has dwindled to just Goldstein.
For almost a decade, Goldstein has transferred handwritten records inscribed in 100-year-old books into a spreadsheet, mapping out which plots are taken and available spaces. He visits the cemetery regularly for upkeep.
The way Goldstein sees it, it’s more than just a cemetery.
“To me, it’s a living place,” Goldstein said.
A headstone for the founder of the historic Washer Brothers store transports Goldstein back to the times he visited the men’s clothing shop as a kid. The Greenwall family, known as pioneers of Fort Worth theater and owners of the Greenwall Opera House, rest at the cemetery. Stones engraved with the years 1918 and 1919 likely mark deaths from the influenza pandemic at the time, Goldstein said. Smaller markers sticking up from the ground note Jewish war veterans.
“This is, in essence, a museum,” Goldstein said.
To others, like Fort Worth historian and archivist Hollace Weiner, the space is a library.
The pioneer Hebrew cemetery, as Weiner describes it, was the first institution Jewish people established, even before organizing a synagogue.
“To me, that’s what a cemetery like that shows. It’s time to live here and die here to bury our people. It was very significant in the forming of a community,” said Weiner, who is also the director of the Fort Worth Jewish Archives.
Smith was reported to be the largest land owner in Fort Worth and donated much of his property to the development and expansion of the city, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
Smith donated land for several cemeteries to be established around the city. The Calvary Cemetery was partitioned for the Catholic Church. The Old Trinity Cemetery for the African American community. The New City Cemetery later became the Oakwood Cemetery. Today, all are under the management of the Oakwood Cemetery Association.
Smith also wanted to donate land to the Jewish people and consulted Sam Levy, a prominent liquor distributor who later became Beth-El Congregation’s first president. He informed Smith that Jewish people traditionally have their own dedicated cemeteries, Weiner said.
An acre of land on South Main Street was given to the “Israelites of the city” in 1879 and a burial society called Emanuel Hebrew Association was formed in 1882 and received the deed, according to Beth-El Congregation’s centennial book.
The ladies in the community often were in charge of the cemetery, Weiner said. They collected maintenance dues, hired caretakers to tend the graves and supervised planting shrubs and flowers.
Congregation Ahavath Sholom, a conservative Jewish synagogue in Fort Worth, established its own cemetery near Greenwood Memorial Park in 1909, “leaving Hebrew Rest to the Reform Jews,” according to Beth-El Congregation’s centennial book.
As early as 1888, a Fort Worth Jewish resident reported to The American Israelite, the longest-running English Jewish newspaper in the United States, that “the only society we have is the cemetery association … and now interest in that most laudable enterprise is flagging.”
By 1918, the cemetery association began decadeslong negotiations about deeding the cemetery to Beth-El Congregation.
During that time, Daniel “Dan” Ashton Levy, the son of Sam and his wife, Adelaide Levy, died in 1954 and was buried in a family plot near his parents. Dan Levy underwrote the cost of the cemetery’s iron gates, and his will established a $10,000 trust to maintain the family graves with the balance dedicated to general cemetery care, according to Beth-El Congregation’s centennial book.
Beth-El Congregation signed an agreement to assume the upkeep of the cemetery in 1962 and the volunteer organization created to oversee the cemetery dissolved, Weiner said.
Since then, the synagogue has done more than pick up loose soccer balls and Coke bottles thrown over the fence and onto the grounds. In 1981, Emanuel Hebrew Rest received a Texas Historical Marker. In 2017, the site received a Historic Texas Cemetery designation, protecting the site from potential destruction.
“Jews were here when it was a frontier. Jews were part of the people who built the city,” Weiner said. “Because of the two historic markers, it will stay there. The law will prevent anybody from coming in and running a road through it.”
Historical remnant among growth
Emanuel Hebrew Rest existed before much of the development around it. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner facility to the west of the cemetery opened in 1989. Two JPS Health Network buildings sit to the north and south — the Professional Building was built in the 1980s and the original JPS Hospital opened in 1938.
The cemetery became an oasis of greenery within the city’s hospital district, Weiner said. Roses climbed around the perimeter of the cemetery. Crape myrtle, mulberry and oak trees provided an escape from the sun. Shrubs and flowers bloomed year-round.
Soon, the cemetery will be surrounded by medical facilities at all four cardinal points. The new JPS Hospital held its groundbreaking ceremony in late April and will see a 740-bed facility constructed to the east of Emanuel Hebrew Rest.
Goldstein said JPS representatives involved in the planning and design process for the new hospital started conversations with him and Beth-El leadership to ensure the new hospital was in accordance with state law, including one that bars newly constructed hospitals from having direct views of cemeteries from patient windows.
JPS spokesperson Dawn Fernald confirmed such discussions took place.
The construction of the new hospital paid mind to the proximity of the cemetery, along with other state requirements and community needs, Fernald said.
Amid the irony of hospitals being built around a historic cemetery, Goldstein sees progress.
“Things have changed, and for the better,” Goldstein said, referring to a Jewish concept known as tikkun olam — or repairing the world.
But he also worries about the cemetery’s upkeep when he can no longer routinely attend to its needs.
This includes fixing knocked-over headstones, general tidying of the grounds and his ongoing work to digitize the entire system.
“It’s difficult to get the younger folks and here’s why — it’s not because they’re lazy, they’re raising kids, they’re going to soccer games,” Goldstein said. “It’s hard to get people to volunteer that are still in their working years.”
Over time, Goldstein has gathered documents that help tell the story of people who rest at the cemetery: wedding photos, birth records, stories about their contributions to the city.
He envisions a day where the information will be accessible to the public, so others can learn about the lives who built the evergrowing city people live in today.
“I’m the steward,” Goldstein said. “I want to simply leave something for the next steward to continue.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify the former name of Oakwood Cemetery.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.
Ismael M. Belkoura is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact him at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org.
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