The Jewish Cemetery of Kalkara, Malta.

A Brief History

The Jewish Cemetery at Kalkara

The first known Jewish burial grounds in the Maltese islands were probably the ancient Jewish tombs near Rabat (Malta) dating to Roman times. They testify to the existence of a flourishing Hellenized Jewish Community on the island of Malta. But unfortunately nothing else is really known of it.

The first known documented mention of a Jewish cemetery is in 1372, when King Fredrick III granted a piece of land at Tabia to the Universitate Judeorum, the Jewish Community, for use as a cemetery.
It is certain that the site of the medieval Jewish cemetery was correctly identified at "Ghariexem", near Mtarfa, and named "Qbur il-Lhud", the Tombs of the Jews.

A Hebrew Tombstone was found there, which is now at the Museum of Roman Antiquities at Rabat. A (plausible) free translation is :

The Kalkara cemetery is the earliest surviving Jewish burial ground in Malta. Kalkara lies in the south-east side of the Grand Harbour area. As one leaves the harbour, it is the third of four promontories, separated by creeks, opposite Valletta.

During the Turkish Ottoman siege of 1565, Kalkara formed part of the front line of fighting and is believed to have been used afterwards for the burial of Moslem dead. It remained open ground till well into the 19th century.

The cemetery entrance is at the bottom of Rinella Street, where the street turns to run down to the modern church of St. Joseph and its square beside Kalkara Creek. The place is about 30 feet by 40 feet, bounded by houses, and at the front by a retaining wall.

Its elevation, some 8 feet above street level, suggests that the lie of the ground has been altered, probably in subsequent construction. The present entrance, a narrow wooden door, with steep, narrow steps at right angles to it, ill-suited in conducting funerals, would be contemporary with these alterations. The origins are recorded in a Latin inscription on a tablet over the door:

Free Translation: "This cemetery was established in 1784 by the Leghorn fund for ransoming Hebrew slaves, at its own expenses, for the burial of the dead of its race,"

The original size of this cemetery was larger but encroachment by unscrupulous neighbours reduced it to the size quoted above. In 1905, Profs. Gotthard Deutsch visited the cemetery during a short stay on the islands. He was unable to procure a key to the "rusty iron door", but climbed on a ladder to an adjoining roof from which he saw a "little place", about 40 feet by 60 feet (note that today it is 30ft x 40ft - which corresponds exactly to an adjacent yard/garden of an adjoining dwelling).

The cemetery he saw was "overgrown with weeds, without the slightest trace of a tombstone or an inscription on the walls surrounding it."
Twenty years later, Cecil Roth obtained the text, to be read over a "bricked-up doorway" in "the Strada Rinella", Calcara (Vittoriosa), from Sir Hannibal Scicluna. Neither apparently realised that there was a cemetery behind.

A copy of the Knights’ of Malta’s contemporary authorization for the cemetery is also preserved with an accompanying plan in the National Library of Malta:

The cemetery appears to have been built to the plan shown in Figure 2.

Wall to wall, it measures 40feet 6 inches from the east to west, compared with the 41feet 3 inches stipulated (with walls) for A : A. The base of the north wall and its corners are cut in rock and are probably original. The line of the south wall is that of the street and may have been redrawn at the time it was laid. This could explain the difference of some 7 feet between north - south dimensions of the present site (30 feet 6 inches wall to wall) and B : B (37 feet 10 inches). The incline shown in the plan’s cross section matches the basic rise of the ground towards the north, and the original entrance may well have been from the west, through what are now Nos. 118 and 119 Rinella street. If the pathway shown was laid, it has since been displaced by graves. Remains in the north-west corner may be the tahara -house (for laying-out and preparing corpses (for burial) shown in the design, or a double grave.

The cemetery today contains twelve identifiable graves (see Figure Nos. 3 and 6-16), four possible graves (Nos. 1-2 and 4-5), one loose gravestone (No. 17) and two stone fragments (Nos. 18-19). Seven gravestones and one fragment are inscribed, all in Hebrew. The best-preserved row of graves is Nos. 10-16 (see Plates 3 and ) and its three decipherable inscriptions are in date - order running northwards. Nos. 7 and 9 in the next row

Details of these graves are:-

To be continued ...

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