The Jewish cemetery was founded in about 1890, after the old cemetery in Kalinowskiego Street was closed. It is on the land of the former Bagnówka village (presently Wschodnia Street), in the northern part of the city, near the Catholic and Orthodox cemeteries. It is the only preserved Jewish cemetery in Białystok, and at the same time, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland (about 12.5 hectares). The last burial took place there in 1969.

On the brick wall of the cemetery about 6,000 matzevas are preserved with inscriptions in Hebrew and Polish, Yiddish, German and Russian. In the part of the cemetery located by the main entrance, many richly ornamented matzevas are located, a bit further there are tombs with more modest decorations.

In the central part of the Jewish cemetery there is the ohel of Chaim Herz Halpern, the Białystoker rabbi (died 1919), constructed in 1922, and an obelisk commemorating the June 1906 pogrom’s victims, constructed before the World War II.