Jewish Cemeteries in Aden

Four Jewish cemeteries are known to have existed in Aden. Two of them were ancient and were closed to funerals before the nineteenth century. These ancient cemeteries were situated on the cliffs surrounding the Crater and had been abandoned for many generations by the time the British arrived.

The Small Graveyard

The third, in the town of Crater, was still in use at the time of British occupation. It was situated in the Hai al Aidrus district between the Parsee Gardens and the Crater Police station, and was in use for many generations. There were many tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions scattered all over the area. Despite their relocation to a new quarter the Jews continued to use the Crater cemetery until approximately 1860. After the Crater cemetery was closed to burials, the British Administration granted the family of Menahem Moshe (also spelt as Messa), then head of the Aden Jewish community, special permission to continue to use the cemetery in Crater for their family members until the middle of the twentieth century.

The Big Graveyard.
During the riots of December 3rd 1947 87 Jews were killed.
8 of them were buried in the small grave-yard and the rest buried in the big grave-yard.
 

The fourth cemetery, in Ma'alla, was the most recent.  It was used by the Jewish community of Aden from 1860 until 1967, when the Jewish community was dissolved. Today there are hundreds of graves with tombstones of different shapes and sizes at this cemetery. The earliest date of burial found in the Ma'alla cemetery was from the year 1863 CE (tav, res, lamed, gimel). The latest date was from 1967 CE (tav, sin, kap, zayin).

In addition to these cemeteries there was/is a memorial tomb in the Holkat Bay area.

Holkat Bay Memorial Tomb circa 1870

During building works under the British Administration, hundreds of Hebrew epitaphs were discovered and collected, but not all of them were documented. The discovered tablets were often taken and kept by private individuals, and many of those slabs were consequently lost. Seven tablets were transferred to the British Museum. Slabs were also discovered in Crater outside the border of the Jewish cemetery. The slabs discovered outside the cemetery were similar to the tombstones in the cemetery, suggesting that the cemetery had originally been larger and that this area had probably once belonged to the cemetery.

A fire, which broke out in Crater in 1852, resulted in significant renovation work in the city. The reconstruction work was carried out under the supervision of Brigadier Playfair. Houses of mud and stone replaced the straw huts destroyed by the fire. During the digging further discoveries of Hebrew epitaphs were made. Many of the stones discovered were badly damaged, and some of the inscriptions were so corroded that their texts were illegible. Hebrew epitaphs were also discovered during reconstruction work at the water reservoir which was located on the hill, in the area called the ‘Tanks’. The discovery of Hebrew epitaphs in the Tanks area suggests that there had been a cemetery earlier which, in turn, implies that there must have been a Jewish settlement nearby. Hebrew epitaphs were also discovered during the reconstruction works in the ‘Aden Pass’. They were set deeply into the walls and secured with mortar. Slabs were also found in the caves in this area.

The common Hebrew words for cemetery are: Bet-qebarot, the house of the burials, bet-‘almın or bet-‘olam, the everlasting house and bet-ha-h ayyım, the house of the living. Among the Jews of Aden and in Yemen the word for cemetery is me‘ara (pl. me‘arot), which means cave. In Aden the ancient cemetery was called me‘ara yesana, old cave. 

Izhak Ben-Zvi travelled to Aden in January, 1950. He visited the ancient cemeteries, the local state archaeological museum and a private museum, belonging to Mr. Kaiky Muncherjee, an Indian merchant residing in Aden. Ben-Zvi claimed that there were hundreds of sepulchral slabs in the ancient cemeteries. The deeper he entered into the ancient cemetery the earlier were the dates on the epitaphs. He mentioned that many people had epitaphs in their homes and added that it would be difficult to estimate how many slabs with Hebrew inscriptions there were in total.

In 1951 Father A. Jamme rediscovered thirteen tombstones bearing Hebrew inscriptions in the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum of Aden. Jamme heard from J. J. Gunn, then director of the museum, that the tombstones had been found one hundred years earlier in Crater.