The Old Jewish Cemetery (also known as the Chestnut Street Cemetery and Bene Israel Burying Ground) in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, is the oldest

Jewish cemetery A Jewish cemetery ( he, בית עלמין ''beit almin'' or ''beit kvarot'') is a cemetery where Jews are buried in keeping with Jewish tradition. Cemeteries are referred to in several different ways in Hebrew, including ''beit kevarot'' ...

west of the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

. Opened in 1821, it is located just northwest of

Downtown Cincinnati Downtown Cincinnati is the central business district of Cincinnati, Ohio, as well the economic and symbiotic center of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. It also contains a number of urban neighborhoods in the low land area between the Ohio ...

in the Betts-Longworth Historic District. It is situated just west of Central Avenue on the north side of Chestnut Street, in the historic West End. The cemetery is sited on a tiny plot enclosed by high walls and a locked gate. In 1821, when Benjamin Lieb was dying, he begged to be buried as a Jew. Morris Moses and

Joseph Jonas Joseph Jonas (1845 – 22 August 1921) was the Germany, German-born Lord Mayor of Sheffield, England in 1904–05. Background Jonas was born in Bingen am Rhein, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1845, and became a naturalized British citizen in 18 ...

, two of Cincinnati's six

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, purchased the lot for Cincinnati's first

from

Nicholas Longworth Nicholas Longworth III (November 5, 1869 – April 9, 1931) was an American politician who became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was a Republican. A lawyer by training, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he initi ...

for $75.00, and then buried Lieb there. The cemetery has 85 graves and has been closed since 1849 after the

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

epidemic filled the cemetery.International Jewish Cemetery Project
Retrieved July 17, 2012. This cemetery is now part of Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati (JCGC), a non-profit organization that resulted in the merger of almost all of the 26 Jewish cemeteries in the area. JCGC is governed by a board which began as representatives of the former cemetery owners, but is morphing into a pure community-based board, on the recognition by its founders that the care of the graves of ancestors should be a function of the entire Jewish community. This merger solved the problem of caring for cemeteries created by synagogues and other organizations that no longer exist. __NOTOC__

Notes

References

* Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Ohio (1992

943 Year 943 ( CMXLIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – Allied with the Rus', a Hungarian army raids Moesia and Thrace. ...

. ''Cincinnati, a Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors'', Cincinnati: The Weisen-Hart Press, p. 226

External links

Cemetery Gate

Marker

Old Jewish Cemetery
* * {{coord, 39, 06, 26, N, 84, 31, 17, W, display=title,inline, source:GNIS Jews and Judaism in Cincinnati Jewish Cemetery, Cincinnati, Old Jewish cemeteries in Ohio West End, Cincinnati Cemeteries established in the 1820s 1821 establishments in Ohio

See also

Notes

References

External links