Burying the Sons of Israel in America: Jewish Cemeteries as the Focal Point of Diasporic Community Development

Summary

Cemeteries are a means of tethering a community to a geographic location. Often this process of placemaking results in the development of a community comprised of a meshwork of individuals from throughout a diaspora. In the case of Jewish populations the establishment of burial grounds are often the first in creating a community that comes together as a result of outside force or lack of a homeland. The commonalities of their religion and shared experiences, both real and imagined, make the study of their burial icons and cemetery landscapes important for our understanding of how historic Jewish populations created communities in the Diaspora and preserved their identities. Through the comparative study of two Jewish cemeteries in Gainesville and St. Augustine, Florida, this paper will explain how Jewish placemaking ties these communities together both on a global scale and to their imagined or eventual Jewish homeland of ‘Zion’ in Israel.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Placemaking Within (the) Diaspora: Creating and Living Novel Landscapes and Places   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 477