The world's first underground cemetery opens in Jerusalem

A new underground cemetery has opened in Jerusalem to help overcome a shortage of burial sites for Jews. It has been built by the Kehillat Yerushalayim, the biggest burial society in Jerusalem, which buries more than half of all the Jews who die in the city.

The new cemetery contains 23,000 burial chambers in lines across the walls and ground. They are tunnelled into the hillside beneath Jerusalem’s main Jewish cemetery, Givat Shaul, which has been reported to be running out of space. In Jerusalem, and across Israel, full-to-capacity graveyards have already closed their gates to new burials, the Guardian has reported.

The burial spaces have been dug at a depth of 50 metres — almost 160 feet — underground, with the first phase of about 8,000 graves expected to be available for burial towards the end of this year. The rest of the grave spaces are expected to be ready by 2021. People will enter the new cemetery by lift; those with limited mobility will be able to use a golf buggy.

Chevra Kadisha, the main group overseeing Jewish burials in Israel, has invested some 300 million shekels ($86 million) in the four-year project. It claims that traditional burial methods, whether field burial or multi-level burial, are not sustainable in the long-term.

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Hananya Shahor, executive director of Kehillat Yerushalayim, told Haaretz: “We put thought into maintenance for many years. The materials are simple. We made sturdy buildings with future generations in mind.”

Moreover, Shahor pointed out that tunnel burial is ecologically beneficial since it does not involve land clearance, and does not impact the aesthetics of the city as interment above ground does.

The inauguration of the underground cemetery was attended by senior rabbis and Jerusalem mayor Moshe Leon who welcomed the modern system of building new burial caves.

“Out of Zion shall come forth the Torah,” Leon declared. “The project is unique and is an innovation in burial in Israel and around the world. The project was done with the utmost thought of preserving the environment and the green areas and maximising the use of the resource of land. I am proud to be the mayor of a city that cares for its loved ones for a respectable and honourable burial.”