Friday 7 September 2012

Moses Montefiore’s remains may be removed from Ramsgate and reburied in Jerusalem


I guess most locals know Moses Montefiore built a mausoleum in Ramsgate and that is where he and his wife are buried.


The mausoleum will be open on Sunday as part of the weekend of heritage building openings, here is the link to information about the opening http://thanetpress.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/montefiore-synagogue-open-day-sunday.html

I may write some more about this, I guess it is a complex issue with implications for the synagogue in Ramsgate.

Visit Open Day tomorrow, open from 9.30am to 2.00pm, and sign protest against removal of Sir Moses and Judith Montefiore remains from Ramsgate.   

9 comments:

  1. I suspect he must be turning in his grave - his old home demolished by the council and the grounds used as a giant dog toilet.

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  2. Developers will be salivating at the thought of getting their hands on this site once Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore are gone. In the light of this is there any chance of their mauseleum and the synagogue surviving?

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  3. You'll have to forgive me if I say that this seems a little churlish. Sir Moses was a devout Jew and is actually buried in soil brought from Jerusalem. I'm not Jewish but I suspect that being buried in Jerusalem is pretty important to a Jew. So this petition is really about denying this to him.
    Is this not more about the Mausoleum than the person? Maybe it would be more constructive to seek Listed status rather than deny a reburial which I'm sure would have been his wish.

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    Replies
    1. Tim,

      I agree. I do not consider that Sir Mose and Lady Montefiore should be denied reburial in Jerusalem. I was unaware of the existence of a petition.

      Sir Moses lived to be nearly 101. From now on it's chicken soup for me.

      For the record I am a gentile.

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    2. Oops! I've just spotted the petition.

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    3. The building is already Grade 2* Listed

      http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1051632&searchtype=mapsearch

      Delete
  4. Tim, John, you don’t think that a wealthy person who could certainly have been buried anywhere in the world they wanted to, choosing a site and building themselves an expensive mausoleum to be buried in, is something of an indicator that this is where they wanted to be buried then?

    Not being a Jew I feel at something of a disadvantage commenting here, but I do know that Ramsgate has a particularly strong Jewish community dating back to the 1700s.

    I also understand that Ramsgate is one of the very few towns in Kent to have a rabbi and that it is the local Jewish community that have started the petition to keep his remains in Ramsgate.

    I think that Moses Montefiore is seen as something of a symbol both of multiculturalism and the Anglo Jewish community in the UK, and that his decision to be buried in the UK is widely regarded as an important factor in his position as the leading Anglo Jew.

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  5. Michael,

    I agree. It is not for me as a gentile to come down on one side or the other. This is a matter for the local Jewish community to decide on the evidence.

    Personally, I would Like Sir Moses and Lady Judith Montefiore to stay with us in Ramsgate. But if they do leave then I certainly do not want the philistines to grab and demolish their Synagogue and Mausoleum.

    I spent my early years living and going to school in what was a mainly a Jewish part of London. Our family had many Jewish friends. Of course in those days we knew nothing of the 'religion' of multiculturasim, whatever that might be. We just liked and respected our friends. Sir Moses Monterfiore was a good man.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.