When the cemetery was founded in 1901, during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the land in what is now called Ulus was still on the outskirts of the city — a countryside neighborhood in Arnavutköy, Beşiktaş district, on Istanbul's European shore. In the century and more since, that land has been swallowed by the expanding city and has become one of Istanbul's most sought-after residential districts, a hillside neighborhood of upscale apartments and expensive real estate above the Bosphorus.

The cemetery still carries its original name, Arnavutköy Jewish Cemetery, in common use alongside its newer designation. Both names orient it in the city's geography — the old neighborhood name and the newer district name — reflecting the way Istanbul has grown up around a burial ground that once stood apart from it.

The location in one of Istanbul's most expensive quarters has created a division within the community itself. Burial here requires a donation whose size reflects the value of the surrounding land, and not every family can afford it. Those who cannot are directed to the Kilyos Jewish Cemetery, about 40 kilometers north of the city center, near the Black Sea coast.

It is an uncomfortable reality — that wealth shapes the geography of death — and one reported openly by Turkish news sources. The Neve Shalom Synagogue Foundation, which provides burial services and maintains the cemetery, navigates this tension as part of its work. The foundation's role at both the Sephardi and nearby Ashkenazi cemeteries links the care of the dead to the life of Istanbul's remaining Jewish institutions.

The graves at the Ulus Sephardi Cemetery include several figures central to the community's modern history. David Asseo (1914–2002) served as Hakham Bashi — Chief Rabbi — of the Republic of Turkey from 1960 until his death, more than four decades of religious leadership. Rav İsak Haleva, who served as Hakham Bashi of the Turkish Republic from 2003 until his death in 2025, is also buried here. Üzeyir Garih (1929–2001), businessman and co-founder of Alarko Holding, one of Turkey's major industrial conglomerates, rests in this ground; he was murdered in 2001. Vitali Hakko (1913–2007) founded the Vakko clothing business, which became one of Turkey's leading fashion brands.

These lives — the religious leader and the industrialist, the philanthropist and the entrepreneur — trace the contours of how the Sephardic community participated in Turkish public life across the twentieth century.

The Sephardi cemetery's neighbor, approximately 500 meters south along the same street, is the Ulus Ashkenazi Jewish Cemetery, serving Istanbul's smaller community of Jews whose ancestors came from Central and Eastern Europe. The two communities have long maintained separate institutions, different liturgical traditions, and historically distinct languages. But the Sephardi cemetery has grown full, and in recent years Sephardic burials have begun taking place at the Ashkenazi grounds.

This practical arrangement — communities sharing burial space out of necessity — quietly reflects broader changes in Jewish Istanbul. The population has declined significantly from its mid-twentieth century heights, the result of emigration to Israel and elsewhere. The two communities, once large enough to fill separate cemeteries, now find their separate grounds converging. What began with Ottoman hospitality in 1492 continues, in altered form, in the shared ground of Ulus.