THE ENCOUNTER
Our encounter at the Novo Beth Chaim Sephardi (Spanish & Portugese) Jewish cemetery – 26/10/09 – Leah
Seeing as we spent a whole afternoon exploring and familiarizing ourselves with one of our sights (possibly the sight we are most compelled by?), I thought it would be interesting to start a discussion on our first experience of this ‘physical location’ or ‘place’. Louise I know you couldn’t be there but perhaps you could describe your impression of the sight following your part in Thursday’s scratch performance?
* Leah’s response*
> I was quite fascinated by some of the historical facts I discovered:
‘It is the oldest known Jewish cemetery in the UK. It was opened in 1725 and closed in the 1920s. Much of the original cemetery was excavated and removed to provide building land for Queen Mary’s college. It was the first Jewish cemetery to be opened following the readmission of Jews to this country under Oliver Cromwell. A particular feature of Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese) cemeteries are the laid flat tombstones. This symbolises that all are equal in death – rich or poor, high or low….
…Moving East down Mile End Road along the front of Queen Mary’s college for a quarter of a mile or so brings you to a small length of old brick wall. This is a remnant of the boundary wall of the Sephardi Novo Beth Chaim cemetery that replaced the Old Velho Cemetery. This cemetery would be located at 320 Mile End Road were it still to have a main road frontage. However much of the cemetery was removed in the 1970’s, and only some 2000 graves now remain from the original 9500. The remnant lies hidden in the grounds of Queen Mary’s College….’
Imagine the controversy from the Jewish community when the local Rabbi sold a large chunk of the ‘oldest known cemetery in the UK’ to the university in order for them to build QM!
> We were quite fortunate in that an interested passer-by (who also happened to be Jewish) agreed to be interviewed by Moving Bodies. Perhaps Claire and Verity would like to comment further on this.
> I was interrogated at length by another passer-by who seemed unsettled by our presence in the sight,
‘Excuse me, do you know that you’re not supposed to be in there…What project is it for?…Will you be performing in there?…Who did you get permission from?.’
> Finally, I would like to refer to the sight’s environment. I was quite overwhelmed by how tranquil, calm & peaceful it was within the walls of the cemetery. It reminded me of Chris Goode’s inquiry of Shunt, ‘perhaps a place where outside rules don’t apply – magic – enchantedness…but how transferrable is the experience you get in the space to the outside, i.e. will you leave the space feeling you can transfer or do you have to go to the space to feel that?’
* Leah’s response*
> I was quite fascinated by some of the historical facts I discovered:
‘It is the oldest known Jewish cemetery in the UK. It was opened in 1725 and closed in the 1920s. Much of the original cemetery was excavated and removed to provide building land for Queen Mary’s college. It was the first Jewish cemetery to be opened following the readmission of Jews to this country under Oliver Cromwell. A particular feature of Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese) cemeteries are the laid flat tombstones. This symbolises that all are equal in death – rich or poor, high or low….
…Moving East down Mile End Road along the front of Queen Mary’s college for a quarter of a mile or so brings you to a small length of old brick wall. This is a remnant of the boundary wall of the Sephardi Novo Beth Chaim cemetery that replaced the Old Velho Cemetery. This cemetery would be located at 320 Mile End Road were it still to have a main road frontage. However much of the cemetery was removed in the 1970’s, and only some 2000 graves now remain from the original 9500. The remnant lies hidden in the grounds of Queen Mary’s College….’
Imagine the controversy from the Jewish community when the local Rabbi sold a large chunk of the ‘oldest known cemetery in the UK’ to the university in order for them to build QM!
> We were quite fortunate in that an interested passer-by (who also happened to be Jewish) agreed to be interviewed by Moving Bodies. Perhaps Claire and Verity would like to comment further on this.
> I was interrogated at length by another passer-by who seemed unsettled by our presence in the sight,
‘Excuse me, do you know that you’re not supposed to be in there…What project is it for?…Will you be performing in there?…Who did you get permission from?.’
> Finally, I would like to refer to the sight’s environment. I was quite overwhelmed by how tranquil, calm & peaceful it was within the walls of the cemetery. It reminded me of Chris Goode’s inquiry of Shunt, ‘perhaps a place where outside rules don’t apply – magic – enchantedness…but how transferrable is the experience you get in the space to the outside, i.e. will you leave the space feeling you can transfer or do you have to go to the space to feel that?’
Post 2
You wroteat 15:01 on 03 November 2009
in response to the last part i think i am right in saying we achieved the same feelings IN the cementary as OUT; what we felt was a feeling of peace and stillness as mentioned and considering the feedback from the group the other day, we managed to evoke the same feelings as the group watched the video and listened to the soundtrack. Granted this was not the same place, but a sacred social space was created nonetheless and it became personal to them – they did not want to break from this and we intruded and forced them to leave. Perhaps this is why you felt interrogated by one of the passers-by Leah, he interrupted your tranquility..
Adam was amazing in many respects…. particularly his enthusiasm and willingness to talk about all things Jewish. I think that if we do want to consider this sight, I will certainly be dropping him an email. For the moment though as we are still researching and have no real aim, I will leave him in peace!
I’m particularly interested in the idea that Queen Mary bought the rights, as it were. Yes the Jews sold the land, but why if the site is so sacred and what was the pull that made them sign? Most probably money, but I am thinking on this longer than I should because I posed the question to Adam, who was pulled between allowing the cemetary to exist to demonstrate his religion, and approving of the building of the univerisity’s infastructure as an undergraduate Law student.. Just a thought.
The remnant lies hidden in the grounds of Queen Mary’s College….’
This is lovely. I think we could play with this.
And Leah, to end with your first, agreed we need to think space and place.. I think maybe this should be a shift from now on. I for one will be visiting all the sites tom, literally walking and noting, just to get an idea of the locations and our responses to them.
Adam was amazing in many respects…. particularly his enthusiasm and willingness to talk about all things Jewish. I think that if we do want to consider this sight, I will certainly be dropping him an email. For the moment though as we are still researching and have no real aim, I will leave him in peace!
I’m particularly interested in the idea that Queen Mary bought the rights, as it were. Yes the Jews sold the land, but why if the site is so sacred and what was the pull that made them sign? Most probably money, but I am thinking on this longer than I should because I posed the question to Adam, who was pulled between allowing the cemetary to exist to demonstrate his religion, and approving of the building of the univerisity’s infastructure as an undergraduate Law student.. Just a thought.
The remnant lies hidden in the grounds of Queen Mary’s College….’
This is lovely. I think we could play with this.
And Leah, to end with your first, agreed we need to think space and place.. I think maybe this should be a shift from now on. I for one will be visiting all the sites tom, literally walking and noting, just to get an idea of the locations and our responses to them.
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