Istanbul Jewish Cemetery is a higgledy piggledy site on top of a hill in Haskoy Istanbul. The gravestones are horizontal as in the Sephardic tradition. The views are great even if it is all somewhat melancholy. But then Istanbul, as you may have already discovered, has a very pervasive melancholy side.
Abraham Kamondo Mausoleum:, Haskoy Istanbul
Abraham Kamondo was a banker, a leader of the Jewish community in Istanbul in the 19th century and also one of the founders of the municipality. His mausoleum will restored to its past glory and to highlight the cohtribution of the Jewish community in the cultural life of Istanbul.
Dying at Paris at the age of eighty-eight, Camondo, according to his last wishes, was buried in his family vault in the Jewish cemetery at Haskoy Istanbul. The Ottoman government held memorial services in his honor.
Burial caves of the Jewish cemetery of Haskoy in Istanbul, mid 17th century.
About 20,000 Jews live in Turkey, with about 18,000 in Istanbul, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. There are 16 synagogues in Istanbul, one of Istanbul’s old Jewish cemetery in Beyoglu Istanbul.
Nakkastepe Jewish Cemetery Istanbul
A regular entrance for the use of perhaps slightly more normal people. The cemetery consisted of an old section on a gentle slope overlooking residential districts and a presently used smaller section on a facing hillside.
The research showed that the cemetery was much older than the stone they had found.
Brewer (1830) mentioned a visit in 1827 to a “Jewish burying-place near Coos-Conjux on the Asiatic side of Istanbul” that was undoubtedly the same cemetery in Kuzguncuk, while according to Rozen (2002), the oldest Jewish tombstone in Kuzguncuk is from the 16th century.
Istanbul Jewish Cemetery,
In the section of Haskoy (in the Golden Horn region on the European side.) This is the cemetery written about extensively by Ms. Minna Rosen in her various books. We had been told that it is one of the oldest cemeteries in the city but we do not know what kind of records they have. The city fathers tore up the entire middle of the cemetery some years back in order to create a road that runs right through the cemetery. We have been told that many bodies were moved to other parts of the cemetery. We do not know if they kept records of this change.
There also are in Haskoy two Jewish cemeteries; Sepharads and Caraim.
The Sepharad cemetery is the oldest active cemetery in Istanbul. This cemetery has been in use for over 400 years. In time the area occupied by the cemetery has changed and became smaller. During the construction of the Halic Bridge and the highway, hundreds of graves have been moved. The Midrash of the cemetery was restored in 2005.
The second cemetery in Haskoy is the only active Caraim cemetery in Istanbul. The two cemeteries are located next to each other. The Caraim cemetery was built by the order of Sultan Mahmud II. This proves that the Sultan accepted the Caraim Jews as a minority and not as a congregation belonging to the Jewish community. There is also a mausoleum in Haskoy’s Caraim cemetery.
Haskoy Cemetery, at the northern tip of the Golden Horn, the oldest burial ground in European Turkey, has tombstones from the 15th century. The expressway, which skirts the center of the northern part of the city, passes directly through the large Hasköy Jewish Cemetery. There are near 22,000 graves in this cemetery. Surnames Indexed from the book: Haskoy Cemetery.