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VANDALISM
IN JEWISH CEMETERIES
The Evelina de Rothschild Mausoleum at West Ham Cemetery, before recent damage.
(Photo: Andrew Petersen Copyright © Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage)
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Jewish communities have a clear responsibility in Jewish law to
maintain their burial grounds as sacred places in perpetuity.
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The following grounds were found by the Survey to be in a state of
appalling neglect.
Attempts are now being made to establish proper legal
title and exact boundaries with a view to long term protection.
London,
West Ham Cemetery (1857)
[Including remains
from the Hambro’ Synagogue Old Hoxton Cemetery, dating from
1707, re-interred 1960.]
Serious vandalism, clearly anti-Semitic in intent, hit the
national headlines in July 2005. Some 100 headstones were toppled and smashed
in each case, and swastikas and other hate graffiti scrawled on
graves and walls. At West Ham, the doors of the fine Renaissance
style Rothschild Mausoleum, designed by Matthew Digby Wyatt in
1866, were broken. The mausoleum was commissioned by Ferdinand de
Rothschild (1839-1898) of Waddesdon in memory of his young wife
Evelina (1839-1866) who died in childbirth aged 27. Both are
buried within it.
Birmingham, Betholom Row Cemetery
Dating from 1823. Now inaccessible. Sandwiched between the
railway, canal and major roads. Site adjacent earmarked for
redevelopment.
Glasgow, Craigton Cemetery
The Survey was unable to locate the Jewish Section (opened
1880) of this privately-owned burial ground during field work in
August 1999, because the whole site was badly overgrown, with
vegetation in places reaching a height of six feet or more. Other
old Jewish cemeteries in inner city Glasgow, i.e. Janefield
(1853), the Western Necropolis (1886) and Riddrie (1908), although
maintained by the City Council and/or the Jewish community, have
been badly vandalised.
Liverpool, Deane Road and Green Lane (Tuebrook)
The two oldest extant Jewish burial grounds in the city, belonging
to the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation (Princes Road) and the
Liverpool New Hebrew Congregation (now Greenbank Drive)
respectively, are both in a neglected condition, despite the fact
that the fine Greek Revival gateway (1836) at Deane Road is Grade
II listed.
Manchester, Prestwich Village Cemetery
Acquired in 1841 by the congregation that became the Great
Synagogue, this badly neglected site constitutes the second oldest
burial ground of Manchester Jewry, the second largest Jewish
community
in Britain, numbering some 35,000 people. Completely overgrown in
2004.
Sunderland, Ayres Quay Cemetery
Dating from the 1780s. Situated on a nearly inaccessible hill top
between a slag heap and a factory. Contains the broken monument of
David Jonassohn, Victorian Jewish mining entrepreneur and
communal leader. |
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