Segula Cemetery

Segula Cemetery
בית הקברות סגולה
Ohel Ben Zion
Details
Location	Petach Tikva
Country	Israel
Type	Jewish

Segula Cemetery is the first cemetery in the city of Petah Tikva, Israel. The cemetery is located in the Segula industrial area of the city and is considered one of the oldest active cemeteries in Israel.

The cemetery spans an area of approximately 270 dunams and contains around 80,000 graves, the vast majority of which belong to residents of Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak. The other plots have been sold for a fee.

The first headstone in Segula Cemetery

History

The cemetery was established in 1888, ten years after the founding of the city of Petah Tikva. The tombstone of the first deceased person is inscribed with the date 19 Tishrei 5649 (1888), as well as the Jewish phrase "A covenant is made with the lips," indicating that words spoken by a person have the power to change reality.

One of the first notable individuals buried in the cemetery was Rabbi Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe. The cemetery also contains the graves of the city's founders and pioneers, including members of the Stampfer family, the Raab family, Avraham Shapira, Sender Haddad, and mayors Pinchas Rashish and Yosef Sapir. Additionally, local rabbis such as Rabbi Yechiel Mordechai Gordon, Rabbi Reuven Katz, the dayan Rabbi Yeshayahu Moshehrer, Rabbi David Salomon, and his son, the city's rabbi Baruch Shimon Salomon, are buried there.

Initially, the cemetery covered an area of three and a half dunams, and over the years it expanded to its current size of around 250 dunams.

The cemetery contains various sections, the oldest being the "Founders' Section," where the city's founders, guardians, mayors, rabbis, and yeshiva heads who lived and worked there are buried. There is a special section dedicated to the fallen members of the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi organizations, as well as a section for IDF soldiers from the War of Independence. In the center of the cemetery is a new military section. The cemetery also contains a section for the victims of HaBonim disaster and four of the victims of the hikers' disaster in Ein Gedi.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the cemetery was managed by Ben-Zion Galis, a Jerusalemite. During his tenure, the cemetery developed and expanded, and a funeral home was built (now named after him "Ohel Ben-Zion"). After his death, the city of Petah Tikva commemorated him by naming the main street leading to the cemetery after him.

The cemetery is managed according to the customs of Jewish Jerusalem, as Petah Tikva was established by Jerusalemites. Accordingly, funerals are held at night to avoid the prohibition of "delaying the burial," and the chevra kadisha tries to prevent the planting of trees within the cemetery grounds.

Rebbes Buried in Segula Cemetery

Several rebbes who passed away and were buried abroad have been reinterred in Segula Cemetery. The most famous among them is Rabbi Joseph Meir Weiss, the "Imrei Yosef," the first rebbe of the Spinka Hasidic dynasty, who passed away in 1909. In 1972, his remains were brought from Romania at the initiative of his grandson, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Weiss of Spinka, Bnei Brak. An ohel (tent) was built over the grave of the "Imrei Yosef," and later Rabbi Yaakov Yosef himself, along with several family members, was buried there.

Another rebbe whose remains were brought to Israel and buried in Segula is Rabbi Natan David Rabinowitz of Partziva. His reburial in 1977 was initiated by his son, Rabbi Baruch Yehoshua Yerachmiel Rabinowitz, the rebbe of Munkacs, who was also buried in Segula Cemetery.