| Salem Memorial Park and Garden | |
| Type: | Jewish |
| Location: | Colma, California |
| Country: | United States |
| Findagraveid: | 8343 |
Salem Memorial Park and Garden was founded in 1891, originally as the New Salem Cemetery, and is located at 1711 El Camino Real in Colma, California.
Congregation Beth Israel had consecrated a portion of City Cemetery in San Francisco as Sholom or Salem Cemetery on December 2, 1877.[1] [2] City Cemetery was mainly used to bury immigrants and the indigent,[3] with the vast majority of those interred being Chinese immigrants to California; the site is now occupied by the golf course in Lincoln Park and the Legion of Honor museum.[4] Public sentiment against burials in San Francisco began in the early 1890s, culminating in a ban on new burials by 1902.[5]
Congregation Beth Israel proactively purchased in Colma for the New Salem Cemetery from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco in October 1891, and a ceremony was held on December 20, 1891, to lay the cornerstone for the new cemetery.[2] [6] An entrance arch and mortuary chapel, designed by William Curlett, were completed and consecrated by May 1892,[7] and a vintage photograph of the chapel exists,[1] although the structures no longer stand at the site; it is not known if they were damaged and demolished following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.[2] Remains from the original Salem Cemetery were exhumed and moved to Colma between 1901 and 1907.[1]
Since the original establishment, approximately half the site has been sold, leaving it at its present size of . The site's outdoor Garden Mausoleum was completed in 1950, and a Holocaust memorial was completed and dedicated in 1974.[2] Congregation Beth Israel-Judea sold the cemetery to Congregations Emanu-El and Sherith Israel in July 2004, merging it with the neighboring Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace cemeteries.[8]