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Maitland Jewish Cemetery
| Type: | Area/Group/Complex |  (Click to enlarge) |
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| Group: | Cemeteries and Burial Sites | ||
| Category: | Cemetery/Graveyard/Burial Ground | ||
| Town/City: | Maitland | ||
| Local Govt Area: | Maitland City | ||
| Street Address: | 112 - 114 Louth Park Rd South Maitland |
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| Postcode: | 2320 | ||
| Description: | |||
| The cemetery is located on a flood plain and is surrounded by horse farms. It is approximately 15 by 38 metres. The area is enclosed by a 1.2 metre new paling fence and a lane to the east provides access from Louth Park Road. There are 45 headstones and 56 identified burials at the site. Of the burials 49 are marked by inscriptions on headstones. The headstones were in varying states of repair in 2009. Since then, and under the 2012 Conservation Management Plan for the cemetery, most of the gravestones have undergone varying degrees of conservation work. The majority of the graves are oriented to face to the west. There are four rows of graves which run north-south, with the centre two rows overlapping. There are also a small number of children’s graves near the northern limit of the cemetery. These are both west-facing and south-facing. |
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| History: | |||
| The land for the cemetery was acquired in 1846 and the trustees named as Barnett Kasner, Benjamin Nelson and Henry Robert Reuben (Maitland Mercury, 3 December 1846). The property was fenced and a small building erected the following year (Maitland Mercury, 27 November 1947) . The first recorded burials occurred in 1849 and, with the exception of the 2010 Abadee burial, all other burials occurred between 1849 and 1934. The backgrounds and family connections of those buried in the cemetery between 1849 and 1934 provide insights into Maitland’s early Jewish community. The style of headstones and the Hebrew inscriptions evoke Jewish traditions and invite consideration of how those traditions were maintained in a frontier town like Maitland. The gravestones provide examples of the work of local stonemasons and of the quality of local Ravensfield sandstone. In 1879 the opening of the Maitland Synagogue and the appointment of Solomon Levi to serve as rabbi ensured ongoing care for the cemetery. With the closing of the synagogue in 1898 and the decline in the local Jewish community, management of the cemetery passed to the Newcastle Hebrew Congregation. In the twentieth century the cemetery suffered periods of neglect as well as ongoing damage from floods. The small building disappeared, weeds took over, the paling fence collapsed, and gravestones toppled, broke and subsided. The neglect attracted attention and intermittent attempts were made to tidy up and document the cemetery. In 1956, for example, two members of the Australian Jewish Historical Society visited, drew a plan and transcribed the English inscriptions (Benjamin 1956). In the late 1970s, a working bee by members of Sydney’s Great Synagogue Youth Group, cleaned out the weeds and, in 1979, the cemetery was re-consecrated (Australian Jewish Times, 18 August 1979). In 1991, management of the cemetery transferred to Maitland City Council on the understanding that decisions about use of the cemetery would be made in consultation with the Newcastle Hebrew Congregation. There were further community clean ups in the 1990s, and in the early twenty-first cemetery both the local family history group and members of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society photographed the gravestones and transcribed the English inscriptions (MFHC 2001; AJGHS 2002). In 2009 the Maitland Regional Art Gallery initiated a project that focused on the cemetery. It resulted in artist Hanna Kay’s travelling exhibition Undertow; Lauren van Katwyk’s education resources; Janis Wilton’s book on the cemetery; and an installation by David Guy. In 2011 the project won the National Trust Heritage Award for Interpretation and Presentation. The project assisted in raising awareness of the significance of the cemetery. Awareness of the cemetery was also heightened by the request for a new burial (that of Leah Abadee). The request revealed that the cemetery was not closed. The Newcastle Hebrew Congregation approved the burial, although it was met with opposition on the grounds that Abadee was not related to anyone buried in the cemetery and, more importantly, that a 21st century burial was inappropriate in what was essentially a heritage site. The 2012 Conservation Management Plan commissioned from Rookwood Management Services by Maitland City Council recommended the closure of the cemetery. The recommendation was accepted and the cemetery closed. Maitland City Council also initiated significant conservation and landscape work. This was carried out by Sach Killam from the Rookwood General Cemeteries Trust and local landscapers Enviroculture Maintenance Services. Leaning headstones are now upright and previously buried ones uncovered. Damaged gravestones are sensitively repaired. A new post and rail fence is in place, and landscaping with native vegetation completed. The Cemetery was placed on the NSW Heritage Register in 2014 and an interpretation plan completed in 2019. |
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| Significance: | |||
| The Cemetery was placed on the NSW Heritage Register in 2014 with the following statement of significance: ‘Maitland Jewish Cemetery is of state heritage significance as the earliest and largest dedicated Jewish cemetery in NSW. With 53 burials in total (dating, in the most part, from 1849 to 1909), the cemetery retains 46 of its original headstones which makes this site the most intact dedicated Jewish cemetery in the state. Established in 1846 by prominent Jewish settlers of the Maitland region, the cemetery served the Orthodox Jewish community of the surrounding Hunter Valley region and the broader Jewish community of NSW. The cemetery is a physical record of the Jewish community in the region and its survival demonstrates the ongoing public interest and connection to the place. Of the three dedicated Jewish cemeteries established in NSW, Maitland Jewish Cemetery is a rare surviving example that demonstrates the traditions and rituals of life and death in the Jewish faith. The location of the cemetery, the positioning of the grave sites and the form, design and style of the monuments demonstrate the community's adherence to their faith and the importance of observing traditions when laying their dead to rest.’ |
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Related Records
© Views of Maitland
- Views of Maitland Record No.
- S3
- Created
- 29/01/2007
- By
- Janis Wilton
- Modified
- 19/08/2019
- By
- Janis Wilton