The first phase of conservation and maintenance in the Jewish Cemetery was made possible with the generous support of Pamela & Paul Austin + The P. Austin Family Foundation honouring the memory of Lawrence B. Austin.

In 1386, the ancient Jewish Cemetery was founded after the Venetian Republic granted permission to the Jewish community to bury their dead on the island of the Lido, on a piece of land belonging to the Benedictine monastery of San Nicolò.

In 1774, the Jewish community abandoned the ancient cemetery in favor of a larger site nearby, and this “new” Jewish Cemetery remains in use today. It contains headstones, tombs, and monuments that date from the 16th and 17th centuries that were re-located from the old cemetery, as well as those from the 18th century to present day.

Since 2023, the Jewish Community is undertaking urgently-needed heavy landscaping works to clear away decades of overgrowth around the cemetery’s tombs and headstones, removing and pruning precarious trees, and creating new pathways to allow better access to the cemetery’s 18th, 19th, and 20th-century sections. It represents a crucial step in the Jewish Community’s major undertaking to preserve and revitalize the cemetery and improve its accessibility and safety for visitors. These improvements will allow for the further identification and documentation of tombs and headstones, creating a renewed interest in and fostering better understanding of the importance of this Jewish heritage site.

In 2020, Save Venice’s Immediate Response Fund also allowed for debris removal interventions and damage repairs following the exceptional high tides that occurred in November and December 2019.

In 1999, Save Venice funded the conservation of the nearby ancient Jewish Cemetery as well as treatment of tombstones and sarcophagi in the “new” Jewish Cemetery in 1997 and 2004.