Hebrew Free Burial Association

It was incorporated as a non-profit organization with the name of Chebra Agudas Achim Chesed Shel Emeth (The Society of the Brotherhood of True Charity )[4] on January 25, 1889.

In its annual report from 1900, HFBA's directors wrote, "What little they may have had quickly vanished for doctor's services and medicines, and even their belongings were pawned by them to obtain the wherewithal to save their loved one from the grim monster-death.

Large immigrant groups, such as Holocaust survivors and refugees from the former Soviet Union have also been prominently represented in HFBA's cemeteries, including Victor Ourin and Aaron Kuperstock, well-known Russian poets.

HFBA's newsletter, Chesed, has an entire section written in Russian to make sure that this community feels embraced in life as well as in death.

In an effort to improve such relationships, HFBA hosted a Russian-Jewish Community Event on February 22, 2009 featuring poetry readings and a silent art auction.

For the next seventeen years, close to 15,000 Jews from New York's Lower East Side were buried on this gently inclined hillside.

Volunteers rake leaves and clear debris, demonstrating that the cemetery has not been forgotten, and that the Jewish Community realizes its obligation to its earlier generations.