The Jewish Cemetery is the oldest non-Indigenous cemetery in continueous use in the province of British Columbia. The land was purchased from Roderick Finlaysons, Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company in October 1859. A dedication ceremony was held in February, 1860, and the first burial took place in 1861.

The Jewish Cemetery is the oldest non-Indigenous cemetery in continueous use in the province of British Columbia. The land was purchased from Roderick Finlaysons, Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company in October 1859. A dedication ceremony was held in February, 1860, and the first burial took place in 1861.

Among those buried in the Jewish Cemetery is Samuel Davies Schultz, ace baseball player on record as pitching the first no-hitter in BC, journalist, composer, lawyer and Canada’s first Jewish judge. Other notable graves include a family plot for the Oppenheimer family in which Vancouver’s early Mayor David Oppenheimer’s first wife and his brother and business partner Godfrey were interred. H.E. Levy proprietor of the first gourmet restaurant in the Pacific Northwest, and most of his family are also buried in this cemetery.

Once inside the gates a Holocaust Memorial stands on the left. At the base on the far side of this monument is a bush planted by the Hebrew School in honor of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s fifth prime minister.

The Jewish Cemetery website: jewishcemeteryofvictoriabc.ca

Read more at: jewishvictoria.wordpress.com

Jewish Historical Association of British Columbia

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