History
A look into the past
Welcome to Temple Israel Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Memphis and oldest Jewish cemetery in Tennessee.
With more than 7,000 burials stretching back 175 years, our grounds and internment records offer a peerless resource for the history of the Jews of Memphis.
It all began in 1846. Joseph I. Andrews purchased a plot of land on Bass Avenue (currently Jefferson Avenue, the site of Regional One Hospital) from Memphis’s first mayor, Marcus Winchester, to bury his brother, Samuel S. Andrews. In 1850, Joseph donated the land to the Hebrew Benevolent Society, who in 1860 gave partial control to Temple B’Nai Israel (the former name of Temple Israel).
By 1885, the growing congregation of B’Nai Israel, led at the time by Rabbi Max Samfield, had outgrown their burial grounds. They purchased ten acres on Hernando Road that have been the home of Temple Israel Cemetery ever since.
A special section of the current cemetery, protected by a wrought-iron fence, contains markers and internments from the original grounds. Along with the congregation's earliest burials, this section contains 78 victims of the Yellow Fever epidemics that devastated Memphis during the 1870s.
The cemetery expanded in 1991, when the congregation purchased additional land across Person Avenue to meet future needs. Burials in the new section began in 1994. The cemetery added the Levy-Cooper Chapel in 2006, which has held congregational services since January 2007.
The Temple Israel Cemetery is alive and teeming with nature's joy.
- Murray Riss