Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery, Hong Kong

 

  It seems day by day the genealogical world gets smaller and smaller. It really wasn't that long ago that in order to find the records of our ancestors we had to travel to countries worldwide hoping to view that one record that would break through a barrier. Now, through the benefit of the Internet we can bring those same records into our living rooms. A great example of this are the records of burials in the Happy Valley Jewish cemetery on the Island of Hong Kong.

The records of the cemetery do not include a lot of people, however if it is your family member that is buried there, having access to those records is priceless. Now, these records can be accessed through the FamilySearch website. In the Asia and Middle East section of the Historical Record Collection, is the China, Cemetery Records, 1820-1983. As of May of 2013, this collection had over 72,000 browse able images.
The Jewish Cemetery at Happy Valley is just one of dozens that make up the collection. The list below is just a partial list of those cemeteries.

By clicking on the link Jewish Cemetery (Happy Valley), a further list of the years covered is shown.

In the list shown, I selected the year 1958. In that year there were 8 Jewish Foreigner's Interred in the cemetery.

The place of birth is not shown but I believe the majority were born in the British Isles. Again, its not a large collection, but how many of us will ever get the chance to walk through the grounds of this burial ground of our ancestors.

Jews of Hong Kong

The first Jews in Hong Kong began arriving shortly after it was ceded to Great Britain by China in 1842. As most of the Jews were transfers from such places as Canton, the community did not grow very fast.
Most of the early Jews were from Baghdad and had connections to the Sassoon family. In the early 1880's there were probably not more than 60 or 70 Jews in Hong Kong, most if not all were Sephardic. Up until the late 1950's the population did not grow a great deal, most likely never more than 300 Jews during this time. The change that took place however is that in this time the community evolved to where probably 2/3 were now Ashkenazic. Today, the Jewish community numbers about 7500. Some of the major milestones within the community are:

• The Jewish Community was first established in 1857.
• The Hong Kong Jewish Cemetery, located in Happy Valley on the Island of Hong Kong was established by a grant in 1858. It was expanded in 1904.
• First synagogue established in 1870.
• New synagogue in memory of Leah Sassoon built in 1881.
• Only Jewish governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mathew Nathan served in early 1900's.

Today, the majority of Jews in Hong Kong are from the United States, Great Britain and Israel.

Some of the records of The Happy Valley Cemetery can be found at www.cemeteryscribes.com and are also part of The Jews of The British Isles.