The Ancient Cemetery

Jewish burial in the cemetery began during the period of the ancient Jewish community in Haifa mentioned in the Mishna and the Talmud. Famous personages buried there are Rabbi Avdimi, one of the Amoraim (rabbinic leaders in 200-500 CE). Nearby his grave are other tombstones without names. According to Jewish sources, Rabbi Avdimi and Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaha were buried next to each other in two crypts. Today, the grave of Rabbi Avdimi is located at the southern boundary of the cemetery, but researchers believe that his grave was in the center of the cemetery, the continuation of which was demolished when the Jaffa-Haifa road was paved. Some believe that the graves of Rabbi Avdimi and other prominent ancient figures were in other locations in ancient Haifa.

For generations, various personages who immigrated to the Land of Israel were buried in the cemetery close to the graves of tzadikim (righteous people) buried there. Because of the antiquity of the tombstones, many of these personages have not yet been identified. Additional prominent personages from the Jewish community in Acre cited as being buried in Haifa are Rabbi Samson of Sens and Rabbi Joseph, son of Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, one of the authors of the Tosafot medieval commentaries on the Talmud, who immigrated to the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages.

The new plot of the cemetery was mostly used in 1860-1935. Many of the city's founders and residents were buried there, as well as pioneers of the new agricultural communities in the area, which did not yet have their own cemetery. Prominent families with members buried in the cemetery include Kalfon, Laskov, Rutenberg, Alfasi, Pevzner (including Shmuel Pevzner, whose wife was the daughter of Ahad Ha'am), Gedalyahu Wilbushewitz and his family, and Dr. Albert (Avraham) Wunderlich, among the first surgeons in the Land of Israel. Also buried in the cemetery are victims of the 1929 Arab pogroms, victims of the Arab pogroms in 1936-1939, and those who died in the Solel Boneh quarry disaster in Atlit. Prominent graves in the cemetery include the tombstones of scholars from the Jewish Diaspora in the Ottoman Empire who asked that their bones be brought for burial in the Land of Israel.

Other personages buried in the cemetery include Rabbi Haviv Haim David Setton, presiding judge of the Tiberias rabbinical court and author of "Tokpo Shel Nes" ("Authority of a Miracle") and "Kursaya D'Eliyahu" ("Elijah's Chair")); Rabbi David Kalfon; Rabbi Rafael "Avraham Kalfon; Rabbi Joseph Nissim Elnecave; Rabbi Yosef Alter Hager from Radovich; Rabbi Avraham Hacohen, presiding judge of the Haifa rabbinical court; Rabbi Benjamin Hamui, emissary of the Ma'aravim community in Jerusalem; Rabbi of the Cairo community Rabbi Aharon Mandel, son of Rabbi Nahum; Rabbi Shmuel Israel, son of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Guterman of Sirotin; Yitzhak Pereplozik, one of the rabbis in Karlin and other towns; Rabbi Yaakov Aharon, son of the rabbi of the community in Damascus; kabbalist Rabbi Israel Nehorai; industrialist Leon Stein; and Dr. Yosef Cohen. Another person buried in the cemetery is one of the Jewish soldiers of the British empire who fell in WWI in the battles in the area.

Already in ancient times, the cemetery was a holy site and a place of prayer for pilgrims. For example, traveler Rabbi Yitzhak, son of Rabbi Joseph Chelov from Aragon in Spain, who arrived in the Land of Israel in 1333, wrote, "From the Qalamun Mountains, they come to Haifa. It faces Mt. Carmel and is the city of birth of Rabbi Avdimi of Haifa. This city has a community famous for its piety. All sort of immigrants to the Land of Israel prostrate themselves in the Jews' cemetery, because many of the wise men of Israel from all countries who died in Acre are buried there."

Jaffa St. in lower Haifa

The Ministry for Religious Services is responsible for this cemetery.

The cemetery covers approximately 7.5 dunam (1.875 acres). 850 people are buried in the ancient cemetery on Jaffa St. The National Insurance Institute classified the cemetery as closed.

Field burial

Egged bus lines 3, 112, 200, 205

Click Here for a Map of the Cemetery