Global warming surprise: Heat identifies old Dutch graves

Published: 13 August 2018

Last updated: 4 March 2024

DUE TO THE scorching 100-degree temperature recorded this month, the grass that usually covers the sunken headstones at the 400-year-old Beth Haim Cemetery near Amsterdam has died and turned yellow, whereas the grass that grows between the headstones remained green. The precise outline of each headstone became visible to the naked eye for the first time in decades, the NIW weekly reported Wednesday.

The phenomenon is connected to the fact that Beth Haim is a Sephardic-Portuguese cemetery established by Jews who fled the Inquisition campaign of religious persecution in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th and 16th centuries. In that community, headstones are not placed vertically but laid horizontally on the ground over the grave.

However, because the Netherlands has unusually soft soil, the headstones gradually sunk into the ground, eventually becoming completely covered with grass growing over them. But because of the drought, the grass growing over the headstones died, while the grass growing between them survived because it could grow deeper roots.

FULL STORY Thanks to heatwave, Holland’s oldest Jewish cemetery is visible for first time in decades (JTA)

Photo: The outlines of the Beth Haim synagogue near Amsterdam are visible again. (Beth Haim)