Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery


Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries is the largest Jewish cemetery organization in California. The cemeteries are the final resting place for many Jews in the entertainment industry.

History

Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries, owned by Sinai Temple of Los Angeles, refers to two Jewish cemeteries in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The original cemetery property is located at 5950 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. The cemetery was originally established in 1953 by the neighboring Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery. In 1959, it became an exclusively Jewish cemetery, and in 1967 it was acquired by Sinai Temple, the oldest and largest Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, which dedicated its mortuary and cemetery resources to all members of the Jewish community in and around the city. Numerous stars and celebrities from the entertainment industry are interred in the park which is located down the street from Warner Bros studios.

Artwork

Throughout the different sections of Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills, one encounters various forms of artwork including mosaics, sculpture, fountains and carvings. The most noticeable is the Heritage Mosaic, which, at 45 feet × 30 feet, depicts a panorama of the Jewish experience in America and is made up of more than 2.5 million pieces of hand-cut Venetian glass. The park also features a memorial monument dedicated to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust by renowned Jewish artist, Bernard Zakheim. The six three-dimensional figures, all rendered in burnt and tortured wood, represent six heroic Jewish figures. Rising from the stones of the memorial is a flame that symbolizes the eternal spirit of the six million and the rebirth of Israel from the ashes of the Holocaust.

Expansion to Simi Valley, California

In 1997, faced with dwindling space at the original Hollywood Hills location and recognizing the need for Jewish burial properties for future generations, Mount Sinai Memorial Parks expanded by opening its second memorial park, Mount Sinai Simi Valley.

Genizah and book burials

Mount Sinai offers a Genizah program where members of the community can drop off worn out siddurim, Torah scrolls, tallit, tzitzit, tefellin and other sacred materials which contain the Hebrew name of God, for burial at a later date. Several times each year, Mount Sinai invites school groups to Mount Sinai Simi Valley where they will conduct a burial service for the books while learning about this ancient Jewish tradition.

Notable interments