Lyndhurst cemetery upgraded
Visitors to Melbourne’s Lyndhurst Cemetery can now expect a professional and religiously suitable service from the recently converted green-fields site.
John Searle, President of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV), warmly welcomed Melbourne Chevra Kadisha’s (MCK) newly appointed General Manager, Fred Grossman, as the guest speaker at the JCCV’s plenum this week.
New shtiebl at Lyndhurst
“Plenum meetings are designed to update the community about issues of relevance and discuss areas of concern. The Lyndhurst Cemetery has generated community interest for some time and given the sensitivities involved, it is opportune for Mr. Grossman to provide an update,” said Mr. Searle.
“The JCCV has worked closely with MCK for the past eighteen months to allay community concerns regarding Lyndhurst and the lack of facilities during its early development”, Searle continued.
Lyndhurst opened in 2007 when an unexpected demand for plots in Springvale led to burials in Lyndhurst far sooner than MCK had anticipated. The difficulty for MCK was that Lyndhurst was a true green-fields site, meaning that it had no power, water or sewerage and that all buildings had to be commenced from scratch. The long term plan aims to have a permanent shtiebl established by mid-2012.
Mr Grossman told plenum members that MCK provides a burial service for approximately 500 people per annum with the process taking 12 – 18 hours from death to burial. Overall, he noted that MCK delivers an extraordinary service to the community. He stated that MCK has worked hard at Lyndhurst and that there are toilet and hand washing facilities, a temporary shteibl and stated that the Board of Cemetery Trustees had congratulated MCK on one of the fastest, successful conversions of a green-fields site to date.
JCCV plenum delegates were also advised that the 12 new Jewish plots recently released at Melbourne General Cemetery (Carlton) had sold immediately after JCCV and MCK successfully negotiated changing the auction time from the initial intended Saturday (Shabbat).
