Belfast City Cemetery opened in 1869 and was the first burial ground in the city with a dedicated section for the Jewish community. Among its memorials is the Jaffe Monument, erected by Sir Otto Jaffe, a linen merchant and twice Lord Mayor, in honour of his father Daniel Joseph Jaffe. Local tradition says Daniel Jaffe's spirit lingers near it. Witnesses describe a melancholic male figure wandering the cemetery and sometimes groaning softly. He does not approach the living.
Outside the gates on the Falls Road a second story is told. One cold, wet, dark December evening during the Christmas rush a taxi driver struck a woman who ran suddenly into the road, and she died. In later years, during the same week each December, several drivers reported a woman running out in front of them near the cemetery wall. They braked, expecting to have hit her, and found nobody there. The figure was said to vanish instantly.
Spirited Isle also records a story at Milltown Cemetery along the Falls Road that a Jaffe grave there is haunted after its memorial was vandalised, which appears to confuse the two cemeteries. These are unverified tales.
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