Jewish cemetery, Chennai

13°02′48″N 80°16′27″E / 13.0467369°N 80.2742703°E / 13.0467369; 80.2742703

Jewish Cemetery Chennai Front View
Jewish cemetery chennai
Plan of Fort St George and the city of Madras in 1726,Shows b.Jews Burying Place Jewish Cemetery Chennai, Four Brothers Garden and Bartolomeo Rodrigues Tomb
Holocaust Memorial of Isaac & Rosa Henriques Decastro, erected by C. N. Annadurai Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

The Jewish Cemetery is a cemetery for the Paradesi Jews of Chennai, India. It is located off Lloyd's Road. The cemetery remains the only memoir of the once significant Jewish population of Chennai, which has now almost become extinct.[1] Burials include the tombstones of 18th-century Jewish diamond merchants.[2] The cemetery houses fewer than 30 graves, of which a handful are almost 300 years old.[3]

The cemetery is located on a poor market area of the road west of the Marina Fish Market and is adjacent to Baháʼí Faith and Chinese cemeteries.[4] Among the graves is that of Victoria 'Toyah' Sofaer, from an elite Baghdadi family, who died in what was then Madras in 1943 - the story of her life and tragically young death was investigated by the BBC.[5]

The cemetery formerly used to have an iron gate on which a plaque was attached on which a Star of David and the words "Jewish Cemetery" were inscribed. After the renovation around 2016, these doors were replaced with sturdier ones. Before the renovation, the cemetery had been reported to be in a state of severe disrepair – with rusted iron gates, partially grown shrubs ,and cracked walls. People in the surrounding area were oblivious to the existence and historical importance of the cemetery. As of 2016, it had few visitors.[6]

  1. ^ "The city's fading link to its Jewish past – DTNext.in".[dead link]
  2. ^ Association of British Scholars (India), Chennai Chapter (2008). Muthiah, S. (ed.). Madras, Chennai: A 400-year Record of the First City of Modern India, Volume 1. Palaniappa Brothers. p. 183. ISBN 9788183794688.
  3. ^ "Chennai's link to its Jewish past, cemetery in Mylapore fading into oblivion – DTNext.in". Archived from the original on 10 June 2016.
  4. ^ "Kerala Jewish Sites". ISJM Jewish Heritage Report Volume II, numbers 3–4. International Survey of Jewish Monuments. December 1998. Archived from the original on 15 May 2001. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  5. ^ "Uncovering a story of ill-fated romance and tragic death". BBC. June 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  6. ^ Roshne B (14 November 2016). "A cemetery buried in history". The New Indian Express.