Jewish Cemetery
Iċ-Ċimiterju tal-Lhud
The Jewish Cemetery in 2017
Details
Established8 December 1879
Location
Marsa, Malta
Coordinates35°52′25″N 14°29′39″E / 35.87361°N 14.49417°E / 35.87361; 14.49417
StyleNeoclassical
Find a GraveJewish Cemetery

The Jewish Cemetery (Maltese: Iċ-Ċimiterju tal-Lhud, Italian: Cimitero degli Israeliti) is a cemetery in Marsa, Malta. It was established in December 1879, and it was built to designs of the English architect Webster Paulson.

History

The Neoclassic gate of the cemetery

The Jewish Cemetery is located in the Ta' Sammat area of Marsa, directly adjacent to Emanuele Luigi Galizia's Turkish Military Cemetery.[1] It was established in December 1879 and it was designed by the English architect Webster Paulson.[1] The British disallowed the building of a Synagogue to please the local Roman Catholic church, even if Jewish presence in Malta was of large numbers.[2]

The proximity of the Jewish and Turkish cemeteries led Lieutenant-Governor Sir Harry Luke to state that the area "is the only place in the world where Arabs and Jews lie peacefully together",[1] albeit Turks are not actually Arabs – he may have interchangeably used it to mean Muslims.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cares for six graves inside the cemetery: three Commonwealth military burials (one from World War I and two from World War II), one non-war burial and two war graves from other nationalities.[3]

The cemetery is still in use,[1] but it is often kept locked.[3] The cemetery contains the graves of people from Poland, Spain, Russia, Hungary, Australia, China and other European countries.[4]

Architecture

The inscription on the main gate

The Jewish Cemetery is built in a neoclassical style[1] – one significant architectural feature is its main gate, which has decorations which are similar to Torah finials.[1] Below the pediment, there is an Italian-language inscription indicating that the government granted the cemetery to the Jewish community in a public act on 8 December 1879.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gauci, Matthew (2009). "New light on Webster Paulson and his architectural idiosyncrasies" (PDF). Proceedings of History Week: 142–143. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2017.
  2. ↑ Knepper, Paul (March 1, 2010). "The British Empire and Jews in Nineteenth Century Malta". Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 9 (1): 49–69. doi:10.1080/14725880903549269. S2CID 144580982.
  3. 1 2 "Marsa Jewish Cemetery". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Archived from the original on 9 December 2018.
  4. ↑ Harroch, Meyer (28 April 2017). "The Hidden Gem: Discovering the Jewish Heritage of Malta and its History". The New York Jewish Travel Guide. Archived from the original on 6 October 2017.

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