Jewish Cemetery [1855- ]

The Hong Kong Heritage program on RTHK recently had an interview with Howard Elias, where he talks about the cemetery and some of the people buried there:

• Listen to part 1
• Listen to part 2

I went looking for this last week, as I had an hour to kill in Happy Valley. I knew it should be up Shan Kwong Road, and on the left, but walked straight past it the first time. After walking right around the block I had better luck on my second try.

These gates mark the entrance. At first glance they looked to be locked closed, but the cemetery is open to the public, and you can just push the gate open.

Visited the Hong Kong Jewish Cemetery today for a guided tour by Howard Elias.  I will share some of the information that I learned from this tour:  The site, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings and the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Buddhist Nunnery and school, is a beautiful oasis.  It is laid out on five levels with stone (granite) retaining walls, beautiful trees and shrubs, a fountain and includes a small chapel and tahara (ritual purity) room that are used prior to burrials.  There are approximately 300+- grave sites currently.  The original lease for the land was for a 10,750 square foot plot of land with a 999-year lease that was purchased by David Sassoon from the British Crown to be used solely as a burial ground, and the site was officially opened in 1855 by David Sassoon's son Reuben David Sassoon.  In 1904 an adjoining and larger piece of land was aquired from the Crown for the chapel and other small buildings.  The earliest burial is dated to 1857 and was Leon Bin Baruel.  There was no formal synagoge in Hong Kong at the time of the construction of the HK Cemetary (and perhaps not a formal synagoge until the early 1900).  Some of the early graves are not marked with any information.  Many of the gravestones are arranged and placed in a geographic location to be facing Jerusalem.  Many of the early gravestones (reflecting the demographics of Hong Kong) were of Sephardi Jews who generally prefer the larger and more above ground style monuments ( and some of these have Arabic numerals as many of these people came from Iraq), as opposed to the monuments of the Ashkenazi jews (from Europe and Russia) found in the late 19th century in Hong Kong who prefered the lower to the ground monuments.  Many jews do not partake in the tradition of leaving flowers on graves to mark visits, instead, stones are commonly used to mark a visit to a particular gravestone - indeed many of the monuments are covered in stones arranged in patterns.

A list of the people buried here, and photos of all the gravestones, is now online at  https://jhshk.org/community/the-jewish-cemetery/burial-list/

We've created a new site for the Jewish Historical Society of HK that contains all the details (that we know) of the people who are buried in our cemetery. You can find it at https://jhshk.org/community/the-jewish-cemetery/burial-list/. (We're trying to get the old site taken down.)

Thanks Howard, I've updated the link. The new website is looking good.

Regards, David

Anne-Marie Evans, some time ago, recorded a very interesting 2 part series on the Jewish Cemetery on her Hong Kong Heritage programme.

I have listened to it on YouTube.

Part 1: 

Part 2: