Jewish Burial Guide
Greater Baltimore

The area 34 cemeteries · 14 towns · numbers match the listings

How to read the listings

Each cemetery carries one of four labels, the same words used on everjewish.com. They describe how much has been confirmed — never quality, and never a ranking. Verification cannot change what a page says about a cemetery; it only adds the cemetery's own confirmed details.

Cemeteries by town nearest to Baltimore first

Baltimore, MD 4 mi from Baltimore · 7 cemeteries

Pikesville, MD 4 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Woodlawn, MD 6 mi from Baltimore · 3 cemeteries

Rosedale, MD 8 mi from Baltimore · 5 cemeteries

Arbutus, MD 8 mi from Baltimore · 2 cemeteries

Randallstown, MD 8 mi from Baltimore · 3 cemeteries

Owings Mills, MD 9 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Dundalk, MD 10 mi from Baltimore · 5 cemeteries

Reisterstown, MD 11 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Elkridge, MD 12 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Columbia, MD 15 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Finksburg, MD 17 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Westminster, MD 25 mi from Baltimore · 1 cemetery

Annapolis, MD 27 mi from Baltimore · 2 cemeteries

Six questions for the week itself

Short enough to ask on the phone; the funeral home will ask most of them for you.

Planning ahead for the calm year, not the hard week

Most people first look at a cemetery in the worst week of their lives. A few questions asked calmly, years early, spare a family the hardest decisions at the hardest time.

Where. Is there a family plot, a synagogue cemetery that comes with membership, or a community cemetery selling to the public? Availability changes; a cemetery that was open a decade ago may be pre-sold only today.

Who may be buried there. Membership rules, interfaith policy, and section restrictions are the questions families most often discover too late. They are also the ones cemetery offices answer readily when asked in advance.

What the purchase actually conveys. A deed or a right of interment; whether it can be transferred, sold back, or passed to children; and what the cemetery does if the family moves away.

Costs, in writing. A plot, the opening and closing, perpetual care, the monument and its setting fee are usually separate lines. Ask for them together, on paper, from the cemetery and from the funeral home; ask whether the price is fixed once paid.

Perpetual care. Who maintains the grounds when the society that founded the cemetery is gone, and whether a fund exists for it. Small cemeteries deserve this question most.

The funeral home's Jewish practice. Tahara and a chevra kadisha, a shomer overnight, tachrichim and a kosher casket, what happens on Shabbat or Yom Tov, transport to Israel if that is the wish.

Write it down and tell someone. The cemetery, the deed or contract, the funeral home, the rabbi, and who to call first. Give a copy to the person who will actually make the calls.

Words you will hear