On our Remembrance Shabbat, 17 November, Melvyn Leach took us back to the First World War to remember the service and sacrifice of Jacob Pearlman of South Shields who is commemorated on one of our shul’s stained glass windows.
Jacob Pearlman’s first recorded place of burial was Mtama Cemetery in Tanzania and was then reinterred in the new Dar es Salaam War Cemetery in Tanzania. The cemetery records state “His father had requested that the Star of David should be carved on the headstone”.
This shows a gravestone of a Jewish soldier at the Dar Es Salaam cemetery, that is same cemetery where Jacob Pearlman is buried. It may be his gravestone, but it is impossible to read the inscription.
The certificate issued by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission states that Sapper Jacob Pearlman, who died aged 34, was mentioned in despatches, is Remembered with Honour, and commemorated in perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Jacob, also known as Jack, was born in Sunderland in 1883, and by 1911 he was working with his father as a coal agent. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, along with many other patriotic young British men, Jacob enlisted.
Tragically Jack Pearlman was killed in action in German East Africa on 19th August 1917, that was Rosh Chodesh Ellul 5677. This is his obituary in the Jewish Chronicle of September 14th 1917
A memorial service was held in South Shields after the war as also recorded in the Jewish Chronicle
