// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy did the Jewish Cemetery, Chinchpokli tombstone go to therapy? It had a grave concern.
Jewish Cemetery, Chinchpokli, is a cemetery in Chinchpokli, Bombay, laid out near the Chinchpokli railway station by Elias David Sassoon in 1878. Covering two acres, the burial ground now contains more than a thousand graves, and new burials continue to take place.[1]
History
[edit]Elias David Sassoon, a leading Bombay merchant and banker, created the cemetery in January 1878 in memory of his son Joseph, who had died at Shanghai in 1868.[1] It was originally intended for Sephardic Baghdadi Jews.[2][3]
The cemetery has declined since the days when there was a large community of Jews in Bombay, with numbers falling during the second half of the 20th century from around 7,000 to only a small fraction of that.[4]
Mausoleums
[edit]Two large mausoleums of very similar design contain the remains of Sir Jacob Sassoon (1844–1916) and his wife, Rachel Sassoon. A third mausoleum is that of Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, 1st Baronet (1818–1896),[2] who in the event was buried in England.
Notable monuments
[edit]The first Miss India, Esther Victoria Abraham (1916–2006), also an actress and film producer, is mentioned on the monument to the Abraham family.[1] There are plaques to the memory of Otto Mass, who was murdered in Buchenwald, and Ernst Mass, who was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau.[4]
21st century
[edit]In 2014, the cemetery was reported to be "overrun with weeds" and still used largely by the small Baghdadi Jewish community, said to number just over a hundred. While some Israelis were also being buried, they were usually ones related to the Baghdadi Jews.[4]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- 1 2 3 "The Mausoleums of Sassoon family and Jewish cemetery in Chinchpokli", in My Heritage Chronicle, 13 January 2020
- 1 2 Prashant Kidambi, Manjiri Kamat, Rachel Dwyer, eds. Bombay Before Mumbai: Essays in Honour of Jim Masselos (Oxford University Press, 15 August 2019), p. 11
- ↑ Benjamin, Elana (1 November 2018). My Mother's Spice Cupboard: A Journey from Baghdad to Bombay to Bondi. Hybrid Publishers. ISBN 978-1-74298-171-0.
- 1 2 3 Nergish Sunavala & Rizwan Mithawala, Mumbai Secrets: Jewish film stars and holocaust victims remembered in a Chinchpokli cemetery, Times of India, 28 September 2014, accessed 12 July 2021
External links
[edit]- Jewish Cemetery, Chinchpokli, jewishphotolibrary.smugmug.com
