Mikveh Israel Cemetery

Mikveh Israel Cemetery, established on land granted by Thomas Penn in 1740, is the oldest Jewish institution in Philadelphia and one of the oldest in the United States. It began as the family burial plot of Nathan Levy, an early Jewish Philadelphian and merchant who helped open trade through Lancaster to western Pennsylvania and whose ship, the Myrtilla, brought the Liberty Bell from England to Philadelphia. After Levy's death and burial there, his family transferred the cemetery to Congregation Mikveh Israel. Worship services had begun at Levy's home in 1740, and in 1771 the congregation took the name Mikveh Israel and worked to build a small synagogue on Cherry Street for Philadelphia's growing Jewish community, whose numbers increased with Jews leaving British-occupied New York, Savannah, and Charleston. Buried here are many pioneers of Jewish settlement in America and Jewish patriots of the American Revolution, including founders Michael and Bernard Gratz, Philadelphia merchants who signed the American protest to the Stamp Act of 1765, supported the Revolutionary cause, and supplied the Continental Army; Aaron Levy, who also supplied American forces in the Susquehanna River Valley; Haym Salomon, in an unidentified grave, who as an associate of Robert Morris used his skills in languages and finance to maintain the credit of the revolutionary government; and Rebecca Gratz, known as the model for the character Rebecca in Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe. In tribute to Haym Salomon and the congregation's contributions to victory for the American colonies, Congress in 1956 declared the cemetery a national shrine. The cemetery no longer serves the congregation as a burial ground.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States