Congregation Shaare Zedek Cemetery was a small Jewish cemetery located on the south side of East 88th Street between Fourth (now Park) and

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd St ...

s on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street (Man ...

in Manhattan, and owned by Congregation Shaare Zedek on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally ...

. It opened in about 1847 on a lot that was just over 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep, and was filled to capacity by 1859. In 1881, the New York City Board of Health granted permission for the congregation to disinter the bodies and move them to Bayside Cemetery in Queens, which Congregation Shaare Zedek also owned. However, the bodies were not moved at that time, and several years afterward, during construction of a building on one of the adjacent lots, the cemetery wall was damaged. The congregation then sought to move the bodies, but this was opposed by some former members of the congregation whose relatives were buried there. The congregation asked for a

halakhic ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical comman ...

(religious) opinion from Rabbi

Jacob Joseph Jacob Joseph ( he, יעקב יוסף 1840 –July 28, 1902) served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues. Born in Krozhe, a province of Kovn ...

, the chief rabbi of New York City. He replied that while the removal of bodies that might have been disturbed by the damaged wall was permitted, it was against Jewish law to disturb the other bodies. At some time afterward, the bodies were moved, and the land was deeded to a woman named Mary Ehrman in 1899.

References

{{Jewish cemeteries in New York City Jewish cemeteries in New York City Cemeteries in Manhattan Jews and Judaism in Manhattan Upper East Side 1847 establishments in New York (state) Cemeteries established in the 1840s