Kingston

After the calamitous earthquake of 1692 destroyed much of Port Royal, many Jews relocated across the harbor to the emerging commercial capital of Kingston. Soon Jews also resided in Spanish Town, the seat of government, and in many of Jamaica’s small seaport towns. By the early 1700s, about eighty Jewish families resided in Jamaica. By 1730 their numbers had climbed to nearly one thousand, and by 1800 Jewish cemeteries ringed the island. In both Kingston and Spanish Town, the Portuguese and the English-German Jews established separate congregations and cemeteries. Today, Jamaica is the final resting place for, by my count, roughly 10,000 Jews. The one cemetery that remains open for burial is roughly three acres in size, located in the heart of Kingston and is today referred to as the Orange Street Cemetery. The United Congregation of Israelites Jamaica maintains the cemetery which is approaching its 200th year.

 Kingston’s first Spanish Portuguese cemetery, referred to as the North Street cemetery, was in the old downtown area of the city, south of the Orange Street Cemetery. It was the final resting place for congregants of the Spanish and Portuguese Kahal Kadosh Sha’ar Ha Shamavim (Holy Congregation Gates of Heaven) KKSA. The cemetery was approximately two acres in size. The fledgling congregation acquired it in 1714. In 1880, after roughly eight generations of interments, it closed for burial. In 1913 the graves were leveled – in other words their brick bases removed - and the tombstones placed in position on the ground. In 1950 the site was sold to a commercial entity. At that time approximately 100 gravestone markers were moved to the perimeter of the Orange Street cemetery and 68 markers were relocated to Memorial Garden at the synagogue on Duke Street in Kingston.

 By the early 19th century, KKSA must have figured that their cemetery would soon be full. After all it held a century of burials of Kingston’s Spanish Portuguese faithful. In 1822, the congregation purchased roughly one and half acres of land a few blocks north which would eventually become a part of today’s Orange Street Cemetery.

 While we have no record of the burial pattern at the North Street cemetery, at the extant new cemetery ground, burials are clearly organized in North/South rows beginning in the Southwest corner. Burials of children were also arranged in rows, starting in the Southeast Corner. For roughly sixty years the two cemeteries co-existed. 

 Parallel to the Spanish Portuguese, English German Jews established themselves in Kingston. According to Philip Wright, the first cemetery, at Lower Elletson Road, occupied about one acre. It was acquired in 1787, closed for burial in 1880 and found derelict in 1960. The second English German congregation cemetery, on the northeast corner of Windward and Elletson Roads, again according to Philip Wright, opened in 1826.

 By the time of the Great Fire of 1882, which burned both the English German and the Spanish Portuguese synagogue buildings, the Jewish population had begun to dwindle, and after those losses, the Spanish Portuguese and English German congregations merged, forming a new congregation which they would call the Kahal Kadosh Sha’ar Ha Shalom (Holy Congregation – Gates of Peace) KKSS, also known as the Amalgamated Congregation. Upon doing so, the newly amalgamated congregation purchased a parcel of land for a cemetery. The parcel, roughly one and a half acres in size, was adjacent to the cemetery of the former Spanish Portuguese KKSA congregation which became known as the Old Ground, not to be confused with the North Street Cemetery which by this time has been closed for burial for two years. The parcel newly purchased by the Amalgamated Congregation was referred to as the New Ground and by 1883 burials began, starting in the Northwest Corner, also in North/South rows.

 Considering that congregational life in Jamaica was not always harmonious, it is not surprising that some KKSA congregants resisted joining the new Amalgamated Congregation yet their cemetery, the Old Ground, was filling up, leaving them with few empty plots for burial. So, according to Jacob Andrade, they brokered a deal with the Amalgamated Congregation whereby the lower third of the New Ground would be for their deceased congregants. So, by the turn of the century, there were two separate yet adjacent cemeteries, one belonging to the Spanish Portuguese and filling up fast and the other belonging to the Amalgamated Congregation, with its lower third reserved for use by the Sephardim. 

 By 1921, after almost forty years, the old holdout Spanish Portuguese congregation closed its doors and joined the Amalgamated congregation which formerly changed its name to the United Congregation of Israelites, as it is still known. Today, about fifteen feet of wall, that likely once separated the two cemeteries remains. My hunch is that the newly united congregation removed most of the wall but left the fragment as a testament to their history or perhaps there is a halakic reason for leaving a fragment.

 Yet to be discerned is the boundary of that one third of the New Ground reserved for the Spanish Portuguese congregation. Perhaps burials adhered strictly to it. Perhaps not. Perhaps Spanish Portuguese congregants would rather have been squeezed into the Old Ground than be buried in the portion reserved in the New Ground. Judaism has two main customs regarding burial orientation; one points feet toward the cemetery gate and the other, towards the Land of Israel. Both customs indicate a belief in resurrection. The latter reflects a belief in the primacy of the Land of Israel. At the Orange Street Cemetery, all the thousands of monuments, spanning 200 years, point southeast in the direction of the cemetery gate. The tombstones at Orange Street, notably, do not point northeast to the Land of Israel.