A comparative analysis of early Jewish burial grounds in Australia

Journal article

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In Journal Issue

Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, 26, 4 (2024)

Author(s) Gary Luke
Chris Betteridge AbstractIn the early years of British settlement in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, their colonial legislative councils had allocated Crown Land for burials with designated sections for various Christian denominations. New South Wales and Tasmania, as earlier settlements, allocated burial grounds under a different style of legislation which was only revised in the mid-1840s. As discussed by Israel Getzler, the nascent Jewish communities in each of the colonies lobbied to also have a designated section of Crown Land, with various levels of success.

In the 1840s, consolidated legislation was introduced. These revisions arose from similar parliamentary discussions about cemeteries and health in England, with the ideas that diseases could be spread by “miasma” wafting from burial grounds. This triggered the closure of city cemeteries such as in Sydney’s George Street, where the current Town Hall now stands, and Devonshire Street and the opening of Haslem’s Creek/Rookwood which was further away from the city.

This article is an edited extract from the submission to the Department of Environment and Heritage for nomination for state heritage listing of the Goulburn Jewish Cemetery. It is based on combined research and writing from both Gary Luke and Chris Betteridge who prepared the submission. Such a comparison of one location with other places of similar age, use and form can assist in establishing relative heritage significance and, as such, are of important historical significance. This analysis has been limited to other comparable burial grounds listed on heritage registers or otherwise known to the authors. Such comparison is useful in helping to assess the singularity or representativeness of a place, but it must be noted that the other sites with which Goulburn Jewish Cemetery is compared may not have been assessed according to the same criteria or studied to the same extent.
Year2024
Pages507-525
Keyword(s)Jewish cemeteries;Goulburn;Maitland;Raphael's Ground;heritage listing