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| Anaheim in 1876. (Courtesy Anaheim Heritage Center) |
There was almost a real cemetery in what became Disneyland’s backyard. But like some of the Haunted Mansion’s 999 ghosts, it failed to fully materialize.
Anaheim was planned and settled beginning in the late 1850s by the Los Angeles Vineyard Society, which was composed primarily of Germans and other Europeans who’d been living in San Francisco. It’s less well-known that some of Anaheim’s pioneers were Jewish – beginning with vintner, merchant and philanthropist Benjamin Dreyfus, who arrived in 1857.
Jewish communities often prioritize acquiring land for a cemetery even before establishing a synagogue or school. The cemeteries are generally established by a local Jewish burial society – a tradition that began in Prague in the 16th Century. In keeping with religious law and tradition, these cemeteries are generally established outside of town.
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| Gustav Davis, a founder of the Anaheim Hebrew Cemetery Assoc., joined his brother Phil in Anaheim in 1870. They opened a grocery and hardware store in 1878. (Courtesy Anaheim Heritage Center) |
Indeed, as Anaheim’s Jewish community grew, the Anaheim Hebrew Cemetery Association was formed around 1876 and filed incorporation papers in January 1877. The first directors were Louis Wartenberg, Gustav Davis, Joseph Fisher, Morris A. Mendelson and H. Cohn.
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| Henry Kroeger Building, south side of 100 block of Center St, (now Lincoln Ave.), Anaheim,1895. Early meeting place of the Anaheim Hebrew Cemetery Assoc. (Courtesy Anaheim Heritage Center) |
The Association finally selected and purchased (from the Robinson Trust) two and a half acres south of town on July 8, 1882 for $125.
In modern terms, the land is occupied by both the northbound and southbound lanes of Disneyland Drive, just south of Ball Road.
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| Site of cemetery land highlighted in green. |
Prior to the development of Disneyland Drive, the parcel was on the southeast corner of Ball and West Streets. (For you surveyor-types: The NE 1/4 of NW 1/4 of NW 1/4 of NW 1/4, of Section 22, Township 4 South, Range 10 West, San Bernardino Base & Meridian.) This spot was well known to locals into the early 1900s.
“However,” writes historian Dalia Taft, in JLife magazine, “no place of burial ended up being created and most Jews were interred in either Los Angeles or San Francisco."
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| Site of proposed Anaheim Hebrew Cemetery as it appeared in 2024. |
The fact that the land was never consecrated or used as intended was “perhaps because of the greater convenience of using the cemetery of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles located in Chavez Ravine,” writes Norton B. Stern in Western States Jewish History (Vol. 17, 1984). The reason was NOT – as one later history buff suggested – because God kept Anaheim’s Jews too healthy to ever need a cemetery.
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| Early Los Angeles map (detail) shows the Jewish cemetery on Reservoir St. in Chavez Ravine (Courtesy Huntington Library) |
After being delinquent on taxes on their cemetery property since 1903, the Anaheim Hebrew Cemetery Association lost the property to the State of California on July 9, 1909.
In a curious footnote to history, had Anaheim’s Jewish Cemetery been established it would have meant that Disneyland would have ended up elsewhere. Walt Disney made it clear to those helping him select a site, that he did not want his “Happiest Place on Earth” near a cemetery.
Thanks to Jane Newell and Cynthia Ward for their help with this article.
