Goulburn Jewish Cemetery and Cultural Landscape is located in Long Street, in a rural setting known as the Charles Valley, on the outskirts of the historic inland city of Goulburn, NSW, within the Goulburn Mulwaree local government area. There are local and district views out of the cemetery, including to the nearby property which was the location of the boiling down works established by Elias Moses and Samuel Benjamin who made the land for the cemetery available.

The cemetery is one of only two exclusively Jewish cemeteries in New South Wales and the only one which retains substantial remains of its former caretaker’s cottage which contained a room reserved for Tahara rites, the ritual cleansing and shrouding of the deceased. The cottage was built in 1848 and demolished circa 1942. The well which provided the water for the Tahara cleansing also survives. The stone front wall, gate and memorial cairn date to1986/87.

The burials in the cemetery are tangible records of the once thriving Jewish community of Goulburn, from the pioneering period of the district in the 1840s through to the burial of two German refugees during WWII. Documents indicate there were at least 30 burials in the cemetery, with approximately 20 in unidentified unmarked locations.

In 1830 Aaron Levy, a Dayan (Rabbinic emissary) from the London Beth Din (religious court) visited Sydney to arrange a divorce for Samuel Levy.  While in Sydney he wrote a Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) for the marriage of John Moses and Mary Connolly aka Rivka bat Avraham Avinu (Rebecca daughter of Abraham our Father) his converted wife, which was performed on 10 July 1831 in Sydney. The Ketubah, which still exists in private hands, is the first enscribed in Australia, for the first Jewish marriage, for the first convertee. It follows the same format in Aramaic language as Ketubot (-ot: plural) from two millennia ago.

Rebecca Moses is buried in the Goulburn Jewish Cemetery, along with the couple’s two daughters who drowned at Yass in 1844. The girls’ burials initiated the use of this ground as a cemetery, however the location of the graves of Sarah and Hannah Moses are now unknown. The first marked grave appears to be Issac Davis (Boorowa) who died after being attacked by bushrangers at his store in 1845. News items of burials at the site in 1844 and 1845 refer to it as ‘the Jewish Cemetery’, a few years before the formal trust deed of 1848 and earlier than the 1846 purchase of land for a cemetery at Maitland by that town’s Jewish community.

The burials and the cemetery are associated with families of respected hotel owners, businessmen, industrialists & aldermen of early Goulburn and nearby towns. Research of the burials in the cemetery has revealed family ties to Jews in other towns across NSW and are indicative of the part played by networks of Jews in the establishment and growth of those settlements.  This research has also brought to light colonial period families who were not previously identified as Jews.

The heritage values of Goulburn Jewish Cemetery are given statutory protection at a local level by listing of the place, including the cemetery, the foundations of the former caretaker’s cottage, ‘chapel’ and filled well on Schedule 5, Part 1, Heritage Items, of Goulburn Mulwaree Local Environmental Plan (GMLEP) 2009 and are also recognised by listing of the place on the non-statutory Register of the National Trust of Australia (NSW).

The cemetery is no longer in use for burials. A Jewish section was allotted and consecrated in the Goulburn General Cemetery for a burial there in 2013, the first Jewish burial in Goulburn for 70 years.

The Goulburn Jewish Cemetery and its cultural landscape setting are now endangered by development consents for industrial uses on surrounding rural properties which would permanently alter the character and use of the valley.

In June 2021 the cemetery received recognition as a significant State Heritage site.

The text above is an edited extract from the Betteridge Heritage Significance Assessment.

State Heritage Documents

Ground Penetrating Radar Survey

Goulburn Jewish Cemetery and Cultural Landscape Conservation Management Plan CMP

Articles published in the Journals of AJHS

Search with keyword “Goulburn” in the Title or in Abstract.

The trustees of the Jewish Cemetery liaise regularly with the Friends of Goulburn Historic Cemeteries. Enquiries for the Jewish Cemetery can be directed to the Trustees email goulburntrust@ajhs.com.au