A resting place remembered: Bandra’s Jewish cemetery revived

Such gatherings are significant for a cemetery that had largely fallen silent. Between 2000 and 2024, only four burials took place in the four neat rows of graves, even as the Jewish population in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region continued to decline due to migration.

The Jewish community in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region is made up of approximately 4,000 families, with six cemeteries–Worli, Thane, Panvel, a defunct one in Mazgaon and the one in Bandra, as well as one for Baghdadi Jews in Chinchpokli–between them. Fewer than 50 families are estimated to be directly linked to the Bandra cemetery.

“It was my father’s wish to be buried there, as his parents were put to rest there,” said Aviva Judah, 56, a Bandra resident whose father became the first person to be buried at the cemetery in five years in February 2025. Gene Samson, whose sister was buried there in January this year, said, “When Joanna’s husband died in 2012, she bought a plot beside his grave for herself. Today, we have honoured that wish.”

Despite its emotional significance, the cemetery had by the early 2000s slipped into severe disrepair. Overgrown weeds, mud, garbage and rodents made access difficult, even during funerals. For families, the neglect reflected a broader challenge faced by Mumbai’s shrinking Jewish community, which struggles to maintain ageing religious and cultural spaces in a rapidly redeveloping city.

“When my father-in-law died in 2019, we were faced with the impossible task of burying him here,” said Jubal Solomon, 64, one of the ten men who formed the “minyan” traditionally necessary for Jewish prayers at the cemetery. “It was monsoon, and the Mount Mary fair was ongoing, so we were frantically looking around for gardeners and cleaners to make the cemetery accessible,” he said.

A turning point came in late 2022 after the death of the cemetery’s former caretaker. This opened the door for brothers Abraham Yehuda and David Ashton to step in and take responsibility for restoring the site.

Volunteers restore a long-neglected Jewish cemetery in Bandra’s Kadeshwari Marg, clearing debris and reclaiming a forgotten slice of Mumbai’s Jewish heritage. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

“There were a lot of complaints about its poor condition,” said Yehuda, who had first heard of the cemetery in 2012 and later assisted the caretaker with landscaping. “The graves were buried under rubble and debris, so much so that we removed eight truckloads of it. Rats and even snakes scurried around, with 180 rat holes found. And right in front of the gate, residents of the surrounding area would dump their garbage there, from where it would be picked up by the civic body.”

Beginning in early 2023, Yehuda, with the help of volunteers, oversaw an extensive cleanup and restoration effort. Graves were unearthed, washed and re-lettered, flowering plants were added, creepers lined the walls, pest control measures were introduced and CCTV cameras installed. Funded initially by community contributions, Yehuda said he has spent Rs 11.5 lakh on the restoration so far, with ongoing monthly expenses of about Rs 20,000.

For Yehuda, the effort was driven by reverence for the dead, but it also uncovered a deeper historical narrative. Opened in 1942 with the support of then Bombay mayor Dr E Moses, the cemetery was founded by Khan Saheb Reuben Samson, Saul Manasseh Haeems, Moses Daniel Abraham and Ben S Judah for Bandra’s Jewish residents. Several of the founders are themselves buried there. The cemetery was registered as a trust in 1957.

The gravestones reflect close knit family ties, with husbands and wives, parents and children resting just a few plots apart. “In the process of cleaning up the place, we came across two buried graves of newborns from the 1960s,” Yehuda said.

Perhaps the most poignant outcome of the restoration has been the reconnection of families with graves they had long lost track of. Among them was 80-year-old Tripta Suresh, who was reunited with her mother’s grave after decades.

“My mother died in 1968 when I was staying in Bandra for a short duration, and she was buried in the cemetery as a few of her relatives were buried there,” said Suresh. “Even way back then, when I was 20, the cemetery was a simple morose place. As I frequented Mumbai rarely, I did not get much of an opportunity to visit my mother’s grave. And the last time I did try in the early 2000s, the place was a mess and filled me with dread.”

After Yehuda learned of her search through a mutual acquaintance, he helped locate the grave, which had been buried under rubble and weathered by time. “The cemetery has been turned into a lovely place,” Suresh said after visiting it last year.

Yehuda said further work is planned, including the construction of a shed for ritual bathing of bodies before funerals and the addition of basic facilities.