Views of Maitland

Maitland Jewish Cemetery

Place, people and paintings

To browse information collected on the cemetery, the people buried there, their gravestones and related records, view the entry on Maitland Jewish Cemetery in the Sites section of the database and click on Related Records links at the end of the entry.

Maitland’s Jewish Cemetery dates from the late 1840s and contains some fifty graves. It is significant as the only stand-alone Jewish cemetery north of Sydney. Over the years, floods, erosion, and periods of neglect affected the cemetery. Despite the wear and the passage of time, the cemetery marks the key role that Maitland played in New South Wale’s early colonial history and, within Maitland, the important role of the small Jewish community there.

This project, initiated in 2008, aimed to revive interest in the cemetery and the history of the Jewish community in Maitland, and to document, interpret and present that history in different ways to different audiences. Conceived, funded, curated and managed through Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG), four complementary contributions were commissioned for the project:

• Hanna Kay’s touring exhibition, Undertow, 2009-2010
• Janis Wilton’s book Maitland Jewish Cemetery: A Monument to Dreams and Deeds, 2010
• David Guy’s installation to commemorate and acknowledge those buried in the cemetery
• Lauren Van Katwyk’s Education Kit: Hanna Kay Undertow

The Maitland Jewish Cemetery Project was supported by Maitland City Council, NSW Migration Heritage Centre and Synchro Creative Brand Design, East Maitland.

The project was the winner of the 2011 National Trust Heritage Award for Interpretation and Presentation, Corporate/Government.

Since 2010 Maitland City Council has commissioned conservation and interpretation plans for the cemetery, and has overseen substantial conservation work on the site. In 2014 the cemetery was added to the NSW State Heritage Register