Friday, August 20, 1999 A tiny 152-year old burial ground
(Centerville Cemetery, est. 1847), believed to be the oldest
organized Jewish cemetery in New Jersey, is being restored.
Landlocked behind View Place in the Albion section of Clifton
near Broad Street, this final resting place for the areaís first
Jewish residents sat forgotten for decades as tract homes
sprouted up around it in the 1950ís and 1960ís. A small group of
Jews formed Bínai Jeshurun synagogue in Paterson and opened the
50-by-100-foot cemetery in 1847. Several decades later, the
congregation opened Mount Nebo on a much larger tract in Totowa
and stopped using the Clifton cemetery. The last burial was
probably in the late 1800ís. Not much is known about the people
buried there partly because only one or two headstones were
visible in the thicket of brush and debris covering the
cemetery. Bínai Jeshurun leaders (now of Franklin Lakes) vowed
to restore the cemetery, and a crew spent several days clearing
briers, trees, and garbage that had accu