Shaarei Zedek Cemetery is a small Jewish burial ground located behind the first Shaarei Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel. Originally used by the hospital as farmland for grazing milk cows, the area was converted into a temporary cemetery during the Arab siege of Jerusalem in 1948. Approximately 200 burials were conducted here between March and October of that year. Most graves were transferred to permanent cemeteries after the war, but a handful remain, notably those of several prominent Jerusalem rabbis and the founding director of Shaare Zedek Hospital, Dr. Moshe Wallach.
Location
The cemetery is located on the north side of Shazar Boulevard, between Nordau and Agrippas Streets.
History
Until 1948, Jewish burials in Jerusalem were conducted in the centuries-old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. In January 1948, the Arab siege of Jerusalem made the Mount of Olives inaccessible, as the route to the cemetery passed through hostile Arab villages. A new burial ground was opened next to the Sanhedria neighborhood on the northern border on March 28, 1948. Since the Sanhedria Cemetery was operated under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Kehilat Yerushalayim chevra kadisha, founded in 1939 by Zionist leaders and moderate rabbis of the Old Yishuv, many Haredi residents of the Old Yishuv refused to use it, prompting the need for another burial ground in Jerusalem. In March 1948 the chevra kadisha of the Perushim and Ashkenazim asked Shaare Zedek Hospital director Dr. Wallach, an activist in the Agudath IsraelOrthodox Jewish movement, for permission to erect a temporary burial ground on land beside his hospital. This land had formerly been used to graze milk cows to provide fresh milk to hospitalized children. From March through October 1948, approximately 200 burials took place here. Some time after the war ended, most of the graves were transferred to permanent cemeteries.
Notable graves
A handful of graves still remain on the site. The most notable are:
Yisroel Moshe Dushinsky, son of Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky; second Dushinsky Rebbe and Gaavad Av Beis Din of the Edah HaChareidis. He was forced to pay a huge sum of money in order to be buried next to his father, as the cemetery had long been closed to burials.
