In 1976 the Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA) was still a young synagogue. Its members had finally found a building they could call their own and they were looking to grow. Normand Berlin, who was the head of the JCA Religion Committee, set his sights on a cemetery. In 1978 Normand wrote in a newsletter to the JCA community: “Let me emphasize that arrangements for the burial of the dead are traditionally seen as a community responsibility. Let us meet this responsibility with the same dedicated preparation that we give to birth, bar and bat mitzvah, and marriage.” With the community behind him he found land in Shutesbury, MA, that was approved for a cemetery by 1979.
