JEWISH CEMETERY, MILE END.
But there have been in London many special burial-grounds belonging to special groups of foreigners, and several of them remain. Foremost among these are the Jewish cemeteries.
Until the year 1177, the time of Henry II., the Jews in England were only allowed one burial-place. It was known as the Jews’ Garden and was outside the wall of London by Cripplegate, several acres being devoted to the purpose—a neighbourhood subsequently known by the name of Leyrestowe. When other burial-places were permitted, this ground was built upon, but the remembrance of it still lives in the name of one street in the district, Jewin Street, reminding us of the time of the bitter persecutions which the Jews suffered, and which are chronicled, to our shame, in English history.
“Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them thro’ the world where’er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.”
In the first place it is to be noticed that the Jews, as a race, are particularly pledged to preserve their burial-places. This is not a law among them—so I have been told by the Chief Rabbi—but a binding obligation handed down from the most ancient times, and any disturbance of the burial-grounds which now exist is not permitted. No doubt it was totally beyond their power to prevent the “Jews’ Garden” from being covered with streets, its very size and position rendered it practically impossible to preserve, and it was probably annihilated during one of those periods when the Jews were expelled from England. Another exception which proves the rule is at Oxford, where the Botanic Garden, which dates from 1622, was made on the site of the Jewish burial-ground.
They also strictly observed the sanitary laws respecting burial laid down for them, and their cemeteries have not been overcrowded. Burial is only allowed at 6 feet from the surface of the ground, and only one body is in each grave, one coffin not being placed above another; and this rule has been carried out in the Jewish burial-grounds in London—again with one exception.