Kosovo: Can New Treaty Stop Continued Deterioration of "New" Jewish Cemetery of Pristina?

Pristina, Kosovo. "New" Jewish Cemetery. Photos: Ivan Ceresnjes (2012)

Kosovo:  Can New Treaty Stop Continued Deterioration of "New" Jewish Cemetery of Pristina?
by Samuel D. Gruber 

(ISJM)  The fate of long-neglected Jewish sites in the newly independent small and poor country of Kosovo has recently received some attention.  On December 14, 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton  and Kosovo’s President Atifete Jahjaga signed the Agreement on the Protection and Preservation of Certain Cultural Properties between the U.S. and Kosovo in Washington, D.C. The agreement, one of many originated over the past two decades by the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, sets commitments and procedures for each side to protect cultural heritage sites, especially of religious and ethnic minorities.  In the past two decades the Commission has given special attention to the documentation and protection of Jewish and Holocaust-related sites mostly through sponsoring site surveys and encouraging U.S. donors to support conservation, restoration and commemoration projects.

According to Secretary Clinton "this is a really important agreement that we are signing today, because the United States has a special interest in helping to preserve cultural heritage sites in countries around the world, because the vast majority of Americans are immigrants and descendents of immigrants. So the work of this commission is of great importance to us."  You can read all of Secretary Clinton's remarks here.

Pristina, Kosovo. "New" Jewish Cemetery. Examples of deteriorated gravestones. Photos: Ivan Ceresnjes, (2012).

Ivan Ceresnjes, former head of the Bosnia Jewish Community and now a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been visiting Kosovo regularly for the past decade and reporting on the continued deterioration of the Jewish sites.  Ceresnjes, who has organized surveys of Jewish sites of Bosnia and Serbia for the U.S. Commission is particularly concerned about the fate of the "New" Jewish cemetery in the capital city Pristina.  He feels this would an ideal project for international protection and conservation in the wake of the new treaty.

This month (January 2012) he made his fifth visit since 2002  to  Pristina's  "New" Jewish cemetery on Dragodan, next to Serbian Orthodox cemetery.  From Kosovo, Ceresnjes emailed the International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM) these pictures:



He wrote: "Last time, a year ago ... I tried to see what is going on with the New Cemetery since I have seen from afar the huge infrastructural works being held around it but it was impossible to approach due to flooding of the area of both cemeteries (Jewish and Serbian) with sewage.  [Now] in light of recent signing of the agreement between government of USA and present government of Kosovo I am just informing all of you about the sad reality on the ground - the quick and merciless destruction and disappearance of the heritage of one of the smallest and maybe the most endangered minority in Kosovo - the Jewish one."

Pristina, Kosovo. "New" Jewish Cemetery. Photo: Ivan Ceresnjes (2012)

In addition to the continuing process of destruction by neglect at the "New cemetery and other sites, their was been vandalism against Jewish sites, too.   Just last month, in December, 2011shortly before the cultural heritage treaty was signed in Washington, the Old Jewish Cemetery in Pristina, which had been cleaned last June by a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo was vandalized and swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were spray painted on old gravestones.

In 2008, Ceresnjes wrote at length about the difficulty of protecting Jewish hertiage sites - and memory of Jewish history - in the former Yugoslavia. (The Destruction of the Memory of Jewish Presence in Eastern Europe: A Case Study: Former Yugoslavia, 2008):  Of Kosovo he wrote: "there were about 500 Jews before the Second World War, of whom 250 were handed over to the Germans by Kosovar Albanians. There were also a few examples where Kosovars killed Jews, and there was also a Kosovar SS unit. About twenty righteous gentiles helped the other 250 Jews escape to Albania where the Jews were protected.  After the war, in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, a huge memorial was erected for all victims of Nazism including the partisans and the Jews. When the Serbian-Albanian fighting broke out in Kosovo in 1999, almost all names were removed, also including most of the Albanians who were considered communists. Kosovo is such a tightly knit society that everyone knows who was or wasn't a communist." 

Holland: Effort to Improve Amsterdam's Zeeburg Cemetery

Holland: Effort to Improve Amsterdam's Zeeburg Cemetery
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Thousands of foreign tourists visit some of Amsterdam's famous Jewish sites every year, notably the great Esnoga, or Portuguese synagogue (1675). Tens of thousands of Dutch attend the exhibits and events at the Joods Historich Museum, located in a group of historic Ashkenazi synagogues, including the Great Synagogue (1671). Art historians are familiar with the old Jewish cemetery of Ouderkirk with its many elaborately carved and inscribed gravestones.  But few people - within Holland or abroad - are aware of the great Zeeburg cemetery, reputed to be Europe's largest Jewish cemetery, containing between 100,000 and 200,000 graves, and now neglected and in ruin. (click here for photos).

According to Jan Stoutenbeek and Paul Vigeveno (Jewish Amsterdam, 2003) the Zeeburg Cemetery was opened in 1714 and because it was in walking distance to Amsterdam it became the resting place of the city's poor Jews who could not afford the contribution to the Jewish Community allowing burial at the Muiderberg Cemetery.

By the 20th century, Zeeburg was filled, and a new cemetery at Diemen was consecrated. Zeeburg fell out of use, and the after the the relatives and descendants of the buried there were mostly killed in the Holocaust, and the cemetery was left to fall into disrepair, most recently serving used for paintball games by local teenagers.

On Sunday, October 30, 2011, Amsterdam’s Stichting Eerherstel Joodse Begraafplaats Zeeburg (Rehabilitation Foundation for Jewish Cemetery Zeeburg) began a collaborative program for Moroccan and Jewish youth to clean the large and neglected Zeeburg Jewish cemetery. On six Sundays, as many as 100 young people will collaborate to improve the condition of the cemetery and in the process to learn more about the history of Jews of Amsterdam.

The program to engage young people in the protection of the cemetery was initiated by Frans Stuy and Jaap Meijers who in contacted the Foundation for Rehabilitation Zeeburg. Jaap Meijers said "The cemetery is completely overgrown, it's a jungle. There is a huge wall built around it and making it impossible for regular visitors to visit. We are now looking for the original gate, which is still somewhere, and with the the help of young people, to make it presentable again. Of course we also hope that it will initiate awareness. "

For more information on the cemetery and plans for its restoration go to the Foundation webpage.

Latvia: New Plaque at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery

Riga, Latvia. New plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. dedication of new plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Choir performing in Yiddish before ceremony. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. President of the Jewish Communities of Latvia, Arkady Suharenko and Lee Seeman unveiling new plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. Old Jewish Cemetery. This how the site looked when I visited with Commission members Lee Seeman and Gary Lavine in 2003. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2003).

Latvia: New Plaque at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) On June 30, 201 the Jewish Communities of Latvia organized a series of events commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Jewish community in Latvia and to the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust. As part of those events, a new explanatory plaque sponsored by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad was installed at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery. Commission member Lee Seeman organized the project and raised the funds.

U.AS. Commission Member Lee Seeman and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia, Judith Garber

I am especially pleased to see Lee's continuing commitment to this project and so many others in the region. We visited the site together in 2003 with Meijers Melers, the preeminent expert on Latvian Jewish sites, and saw the relatively new large boulder on site, with a prominent Jewish Star, but there was no text or other information telling what the site was and what had happened to it. Without an informed guide, we would have been entirely in the dark. Lee Seeman persevered and saw to it that future visitors would not be so perplexed.

In all its projects the U.S. Commission has never felt it enough to charge people to "Never Forget." The Commission insists in all its projects that accurate information is provided to the visitor or viewer to better teach them what to remember. Its previous work in Riga, on the Rumbula massacre and mass grave site monument is a good example.

Riga, Latvia. Old Jewish Cemetery. Impressive memorial stone placed on site in 1990s, but with explanatory text. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2003).

The plaque is in Latvian and English. I do not yet have photos to post, but here is the English text:

2011
The old Jewish Cemetery
This is Riga's first Jewish cemetery. It was opened in 1725 and burials continued here until the late 1930s. after German forces occupied Riga in 1941, the prayer house and the mortuary were burned down. the cemetery became a mass burial site for over 1000 Jews killed in the streets and houses of the Riga Ghetto. Following World War Two, many of the cemetery's tombstones were removed and used as building material. Others deteriorated. The wall surrounding the cemetery collapsed, and the site left uncared for fell into disrepair. In the 1960s, the site was razed and renamed "The Park of the Communist Brigades." In 1992, the park was renamed "The Old Jewish Cemetery”

Conference: Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference (June 12-14)

Conference: Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference (June 12-14)
For blog readers intimately involved in burial and cemetery issues - or those hwo owuld liek to be -, you should be aware of this upcoming conference. The following is adapted from information provided by the Jewish Cemetery Association of North America.

Chaverim:The Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference is two days (June 12-14) of intense learning focused on the end of life continuum. From bikkur cholim, to tahara and shmira, funeral and burial and mourning, this conference allows every participant to immerse in the knowledge, resources, texts, and discussions vital to working in their own community. If you are new to end of life work, this gathering will provide you education and inspiration, concrete resources and a network of experts.

And did we mention networking?If you are experienced, the conference gives you a wealth of options to learn in-depth, or branch out to new areas. If you need emotional re-charging, get your batteries ready because you will be re-inspired, re-enthused, and re-energized by the amazing teachers and folks who attend this conference.

Don't miss the "live" tahara demo, halacha of intermarried burials, active listening, marketing traditional funerals and burials, infection control, history of the Jewish Sacred Society, autopsy and medical examiners, non-profit funeral homes, transgender issues, cemetery consecration, Maavor Yabbok text study, healing, cemetery finances, bereavement photography, genealogy, cemetery regulators and much more. Plus lots of networking, discussing, strategizing, sharing and supporting. We encourage every synagogue, Jewish cemetery, and Chevra Kadisha to send a team to the conference. There's a lot to learn and to bring home. Logistics? All Kosher meals are provided. Chicago is a major airport hub. Hotel rates are very reasonable.

To registration click here or go to http://www.jewish-funerals.org/conference/conferencecontents.htm.

For a limited time, JCANA is offering Jewish cemeteries the opportunity to join JCANA (initial year only) for the remainder of the calendar year at no charge. Cemetery representatives should include their intent to take advantage of this offer in the conference registration. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago.

Romania: Iasi Holocaust Victims Reburied

Romania: Iasi Holocaust Victims Reburied

AFP reported on April 4, 2011 the following story of the reburial in the Jewish cemetery of Iasi, Romania, of the remains of about 40 Jewish Holocaust victims. The reburial is significant for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the victims were the first found in a mass grave in Romania since 1945 - despite the widespread belief that many such graves exist. Romania's long-standing official reluctance about pursuing Holocaust history is well known.

Elsewhere in Europe more concerted efforts are in progress to identify such graves - but these efforts, too, are often hampered by mixed local sensibilities about confronting the past and priorities about the future.

The second issue involves how to treat such graves when found. Many observant Jews prefer, and many insist, that graves be undisturbed, but marked and in some way consecrated and protected; in essence making every mass grave a Jewish cemetery. This follows Jewish law and tradition, and does not "disturb the dead."

On the other hand there are many who insist and require - for legal and historical reasons - that such graves when found be investigated, which usually mean the exhumation of the dead in order to try to describe the crime and identify the victims. Sometimes this is required to ascertain the fact that the victims were in fact Jews - or all Jews - something that in many cases, however, can never be fully known. A new field of forensic anthropology has developed in recent years specializing in such work - the result of horrific crimes in countries around the world. Following this scenario, Jewish communities usually prefer to see the exhumed remains reburied in Jewish cemeteries with other Jews in already consecrated ground, though for some Orthodox Jews the fear of interring a non-Jew in a Jewish cemetery is also a concern. Historical markers recounting the circumstances of their murders can still be placed at the mass grave site. The speed with which investigation and reburial is carried out can also become a contentious issue.

In Jewish history there are many precedents for the removal and reburial of human remains in order to protect them from destruction or to reunite them. Usually such removals and reburials follow prescribed procedures under rabbinic supervision, but truthfully, most of these are of fairly recent invention. How bodies were dealt with in the past in times of oppression and duress, and in times of communal recovery, is not fully known.

One thing that all sides agree on - is that graves of the dead need to marked in some way. Historians and archaeologists want the events of the past to be remembered. Observant Jews want to respect the dead, and also provided a warning to those (such as Cohanim) who cannot come in contact with the dead.

Dozens of Holocaust victims laid to rest in Romania

by: Isabelle Wesselingh

Rabbis from Britain and the United States bury on April 4, 2011 in the town of Iasi, 410 kms north of Bucharest, some 40 Jews killed during the Holocaust and found in November 2010 in a mass grave in the northeastern Romanian village of Popricani.

The remains of about 40 Jews killed during the Holocaust and found in a mass grave were laid to rest Monday in an emotion-filled ceremony in northeastern Romania. Five rabbis from Britain and the United States performed the funeral service under a grey and cloudy sky. Dressed in black, they carried the remains, unidentified and contained in paper bags and cardboard boxes, and put them into a single grave in the Jewish cemetery of Iasi, overlooking the city. "We have come here to help these people rest in peace. We believe it is God's will", British rabbi Meir Twersky, whose grand-parents are buried in Iasi cemetery, told AFP. "We are gathered here today to remember these men, women and children who were brutally murdered in a forest in 1941 (...) only because they were Jews", Israel's ambassador to Romania, Dan Ben-Eliezer, said during the official ceremony.

According to the Elie Wiesel National Institute, the victims were killed in the summer of 1941 at Popricani, close to Iasi, by the Romanian army, an ally of the Nazis during World War II. They were among more than 15,000 Jews killed in Iasi during pogroms in 1941. A Romanian historian, Adrian Cioflanca, found the site thanks to the testimonies of Romanians who had witnessed the killings. "We will continue the historical research in order to try to determine where the victims came from, whether it was from Iasi or the surrounding villages", the director of the Elie Wiesel Institute, Alexandru Florian, told AFP.

The exact number of victims, including women and children, has not been determined, but Cioflanca told AFP, "We found the skulls of at least 35 people but there were other body parts so we can talk about at least 40 people." The victims were buried just a few metres (yards) away from thousands more Jews killed during the pogroms. "I ask the forgiveness of the deceased for the suffering that has been brought to their holy bones", rabbi Meir Schlesinger said, referring to the belief that the remains should have been left where they were originally found. But Abraham Ghiltman, the president of the Iasi Jewish community, said it was a "relief" to see "those whose memory was forgotten" to be lying next to their fellow citizens in the Jewish cemetery. "We hope that the events we witnessed during the Holocaust will never happen again, neither in Romania nor in the rest of the world", he added.

According to an international commission of historians led by Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, himself a Romanian-born Jew, between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed in territories run by the pro-Nazi Romanian regime during 1940-1944. The Popricani mass grave is the first to be discovered since 1945, when 311 corpses were exhumed from three locations in Stanca Roznovanu, close to Iasi, according to the Wiesel Institute.

jewish-heritage-travel: Stones and Stone-carver images from a century ago

Stones and Stone-carver images from a century ago
(cross posted from http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com)

Ruth Ellen Gruber keeps posting interesting material on the history of Jewish gravestone carving.

See: jewish-heritage-travel: Stones and Stone-carver images from a century ago

In this post she shows images by Jewish artist Solomon Yudovin (1892-1954). a talented artist born near Vitebsk (where Marc Chagall was born). Yudovin was one of the artists who participated with An-Sky in the Jewish ethnographic expeditions through Volynia and Podolia (Ukraine). Yudovin photographed and copied the many of the Judaica objects and artworks discovered and collected and he later used many of these same themes in his won work - adapting by continuing Jewish traditional art motifs, themes and iconography.


One of my favorite Yudivin works is "Shabbat." Ruth should like this for all the candlestick imagery. I often show this image when I speak of the architecture and imagination of the shtetl.

Houses of Life: The Jewish Cemeteries of Jamaica by Rachel Frankel

ISJM Vice-President and architect Rachel Frankel has written a short piece about the Jewish cemeteries of Jamaica for the website of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. This derives from her paper at last January's conference on Jewish Diaspora in the Caribbean Conference, the proceedings of which will soon be published. Rachel will be leading a small team back to Jamaica this spring to continue cemetery documentation.

Houses of Life: The Jewish Cemeteries of Jamaica
by Rachel Frankel

At the outskirts of Port Royal lies Hunt’s Bay Jewish Cemetery, Jamaica’s oldest burial ground no longer in use today. The cemetery has recently been inventoried and mapped, and is now a Jamaica National Heritage Trust Site. Inventory work continues this month on the Orange Street Jewish Cemetery, Jamaica’s two hundred year old bet haim (“house of life”).

Jamaica’s several Jewish cemeteries, which ring this Caribbean island, are not wholly preserved, accessible, or undisturbed, but they contain over three continuous centuries of gravestone imagery, epitaphic language, genealogy, burial patterns, and cemetery site design. Thanks in part to the United Congregation of Israelites Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Jamaica and Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions, these New World necropolises are undergoing inventory, analysis, and preservation.

Read the entire article here.

Poland: Recovery of Matzevot from Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki and Protection of Cemetery Site

Nowy Dwor, Poland. Recovery of Jewish gravestones that had been used as the foundation for a sidewalk by the river. Photos courtesy of http://www.nowydworjewishmemorial.com

Poland: Recovery of Matzevot from Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki and Protection of Cemetery Site

(ISJM) A new effort is underway to protect and preserve the Jewish cemetery of the central Polish town of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki. You can read more and see photos here. The cemetery had been desecrated and destroyed after the evacuation of the Jews from the Nowy Dwór Ghetto to the concentration camps, had been all but abandoned. The graves had been opened and plundered of their concrete caskets and headstones (Matzevot); bones were scattered, leaving little to no evidence of what happened to the generations of souls that had been laid to rest there. In the 1980s squatters had begun to build houses on the edge of the property that they claimed, “Belonged to no one.” People excavated the hillside of the property for sand and gravel.

The goal of the Nowy-Dwór-Maz-Jewish-Cemetery-Restoration-and-Memorial is "to preserve and protect the cemetery as a physical attestation to what happened. One just has to look at it to understand the significance. We have a proposal to secure the property with a proper fence, similar to that used in local public parks. The length of the fence is 670 meters with a cost in excess of $40,000. Our wish is to make the newly discovered headstones part of a memorial and interpretive area at the entrance to the cemetery to tell the story of what once was. We would also like to install a “Scroll of Remembrance” listing as many names as can be found: Names of people who were buried there before the Holocaust and names of people who died in the camps that were not able to live their lives out in peace. This is just a concept at the moment, as we need to develop a program that would be most appropriate and respectful."

Beginning last year soil from the construction site of the new Jewish Museum in Warsaw has been brought to cover the many now-exposed bones which are scattered throughout the cemetery. Plans are to fence the site and then to build a memorial incorporating matzevot that have been recovered form sidewalk paving elsewhere in thew town.

The local municipality has been very cooperative in the developing the project, but the cost of the fencing is estimated at $40,000 which must be paid with outside funds. So far, a little more than $10,000 has been raised. To make (USA) tax-exempt contribution consult the website.

For addition information contact:

Ze’ev Shaked (USA):
210-698-0313
zshaked@sbcglobal.net

David Wluka (USA):
781-784-4400
david@wlukarealestate.com

Yosef Kieliszek (Israel)
(972) 3-503-2461
Keliszak@zahav.net.il

Poland: Two Jewish Cemeteries and One Monument Vandalized

Poland: Two Jewish Cemeteries and One Monument Vandalized

(ISJM) The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland reports several recently discovered acts of destructive vandalism against Jewish sites. These are the only details we have atthe moment:

The a section of the fence around the Jewish cemetery in Gdansk (a site previously attacked several times)was seriously damaged.

Jewish gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Debrzno have been overturned and partially destroyed by unknown attackers. The cemetery was recently cleaned up by the pupils of the Youth Correctional Facility in Debrzno.

Lastly (we hope), The monument at the Jewish cemetery in Suwalki was also vandalized. This same monument was also attacked in 2007.

Romania: Restoration of Vandalized Bucharest Cemetery

Romania: Restoration of Vandalized Bucharest Cemetery

(ISJM) Dr. Aurel Vainer, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romanian (FedRom) reports that the graves at the Jewish cemetery at 162 Giurgiului Road in Bucharest, that were vandalized in October 2008 are being restored, thank to assistance from the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. The cemetery is the the largest Jewish cemetery in Bucharest. The 131 damaged monuments were vandalized on h Simchat Torah two and half years ago.

Restoration by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania (FEDROM), is being supported by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. The U.S. Government agency is providing $46,000 of the cost estimated at $53,000. FEDROM will provide the rest of the funds. The restoration began in April and is expected to be completed in August.

In a public statement The Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania expressed "its sincere thanks, and deep appreciation to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad – the donors, and particularly Member Larry Steinberg, who is providing $35,000 of the money –for such generous support. The Commission regularly carries out research and diplomatic advocacy on behalf of the protection and preservation of cultural monuments in more than twenty countries, and is especially active on behalf of sites of significance to ethnic and religious minorities, and the sites that have suffered due to historic and contemporary acts of intolerance. Funds to restoration projects come from private donors on an as needed basic. Commission members, appointed by the U.S. Congress and the President are encouraged to take an active role in fund raising for this work."

Vainer said “We, Jews of Romania, do believe that the project demonstrates rejection of intolerance, and is also a gesture of human solidarity, promotion of understanding, tolerance, and respect for Jewish heritage, as valuable part of the national and world heritage of all mankind.”

FedRom is responsible for over 1,000 Jewish cemeteries across the country. A small staff and limited funds makes the monitoring and maintenance of these far flung sites always difficult, and often impossible. Private funds are always needed for the work. Sadly, acts of violence and vandalism such as that of two years ago force a redirection of already limited resources.

Poland: Abandoned Jewish Cemetery of Przemysl Returned to Jewish Ownership

Poland: Abandoned Jewish Cemetery of Przemysl Returned to Jewish Ownership

(ISJM) Last month (Feb 23) Michael Freund reported in the Jerusalem Post that the long abandoned and neglected "Old" Jewish cemetery of Przemsyl,has been restituted to the ownership of the foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ). The site on is still marked by an impressive stone entrance gate. Only a few gravestones from the cemetery have survived (photos) gravestones on the site which dates to the 16th century, it is believed that the burials remain intact, and the Foundation (FODZ) plans to clean the site and protect it. The carved gravestones were removed by the German occupiers of the town during the Second World War. To date, none have been located, but ti is possible that many were reused nearby for pavements and building material and some may be still be found. A second of "New" cemetery still survives in the town. This has hundreds of surviving stones, including post-1945 burials.

In June 2009, Freund participated in the dedication of a memorial plaque on the former Przemysl New Synagogue (1910), known as the Scheinbach synagogue and now used as a public library. At that time he challenged city officials to return the former cemetery.

Przemsyl, which was once a central Polish town, but is now located near the border of Ukraine, was once at town with a thriving pre-Holocaust Jewish population (estimated at 30% of the total). As the cemetery of a major town it also served, according the FODZ researchers nearby communities of Jaroslav, Pruchnik, Kanczuga and Dynow.

the following information comes from the websites of the Cemetery project of the International Jewish Genealogical Society.

OLD CEMETERY: The Jewish homes were founded outside the walls of the city on the road to Nehrybki between the current ul Wandy and ul Rakoczy. This old cemetery was documented first in 1568 in the privilege issued by King Sigismund Augustus and again in 1571 regarding damage. Since in 1638 King Władysław IV gave the Jews the privilege allowing them to use "the synagogue cemetery: and indicating that the cemetery also served the surrounding cities including Jarosławia, Pruchnik, Kańczugi, and Dynów. Five years later the cemetery area was enlarged. Land also was purchased in 1765. An 18th century fence shows in archival records. During WWII, this cemetery was destroyed, its stone gravestones used for making roads and streets including the barracks on ul Mickiewicz. Without care cemetery slipped into oblivion. Before WWII, archival photographs in the Muzeum Narodowego Ziemi Przemyskiej show that the cemetery had a large group of graves from the 16th century, the oldest being that of a woman named Gitel bat Gershon, who died on September 23, 1574 (8 tiszri 5335). In the mid-19th century, the cemetery occupied two hectares and was almost completely filled. The Jewish Community in Przemysl needed a new cemetery.

Sniatyn, Ukraine. (top) Garbage piled in front of Jewish cemetery prior to cleaning and (bottom) cemetery after cleaning: Photo: courtesy Sofia Dyak (July, 2009)

Sniatyn, Ukraine. Local courtyard paved with Jewish matzevot. Photo: courtesy Sofia Dyak (2009)

Ukraine: Sniatyn Jewish Cemetery Cleaned and Subject of Local Exhibition
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Last summer the Center for Urban History in East Central Europe in Lviv organized a student project called "Sniatyn- Archeology of Memory: Discovering and Reviving the Historical Heritage of Galician Town." The project was created within the framework of the program "Memoria", initiated by the foundation "Memory, Responsibility and Future" together with the Stefan Batory Foundation. The southern Galician town of Sniatyn was chosen for the project as an example of a border city. It is located near Bukovina (now Ukraine, Moldova and Romania), an area of rich multi-cultural history, where Ottoman, Austiran and Polish-Ukrainian cultures intermingled. According to researchers from the Center, “statistics from the first half of the 20th century suggest that close to two fifths of the population was formed by Ukrainians (Ruthenians), more than a third were Jews, and one fifth was made up of Poles. Other than these three main groups, there was also a small number of Germans, Armenians and Czechs.” Bukovina was also home to an especially fine tradition of Jewish cemetery art, which can still be seen at many extant sites, but is also remembered in photographs of now-lost carved matzevot (gravestones).

Thanks to project coordinator Sofia Dyak, I am posting photographs from the camp – which was organized as a two-week as a history and conservation seminar, illustrating some of the work done. (It I now snowing out my window, so I savor these summer photos – and hope that the organizers will sponsor similar events and opportunities in 2010).

Sniatyn, Ukraine. Jewish cemetery, cleaned matzevah, presumably - because of the pitcher - of a Levite.
Photo: courtesy of Sofia Dyak (2009)

According to Dyak, “the goal of the project was to return the attention of the inhabitants of Sniatyn to the multi-national and multi-religious heritage of their city with the help of the two week program of a volunteer camp made up of youth from Ukraine, Poland and Germany” Most of the 19 participants were students from the Institute of Architecture in Lviv. The group studied and worked on conservation projects on the adjacent Jewish and Christian cemeteries and learned more about the heritage of the region, but also the contemporary life of Sniatyn. The Christian cemetery is still in use, but since the destruction of the local Jewish community in the Holocaust, the Jewish cemetery was abandoned and neglected; many gravestones had been robbed, and those still in situ were endangered by spreading tree root and excess vegetation.

Students cleaned the cemeteries and also discovered Jewish gravestones paving a courtyard. During and after the Second World War Jewish gravestones were frequently used for paving (see for examples, the polychrome matzevot recently discovered in Radom, Poland. Other examples are known from Kazimierz Dolny, where they were retrieved and erected into a monument, and from Kremenets, Ukraine).

Sniatyn, Ukraine. Conservation of matzevah at Jewish cemetery. Photo: courtesy Sofia Dyak (2009)

The project also arranged for translation of about 80 inscriptions from the Jewish cemetery. This inscriptions, as well as study of symbolic imagery used on the stones was of great interest to the students, and was also used as tool to engage wider local interest in the history and care of the site.

Sniatyn, Ukraine. Exhibition on main square, culminating project. Photo: courtesy Sofia Dyak (2009)

The two-session culminated in the presentation of an outdoor exhibition on the main city square displaying the results of volunteers’ work to engage and inform the local inhabitants. Dr. Khrystyna Boyko (National University "Lviv Polytechnic") was the academic leader of the project.

For more information click here.

Poland: More Work at Izbica Jewish Cemetery

Poland: More Work at Izbica Jewish Cemetery

(ISJM) The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland has installed an information plaque at the Jewish cemetery grounds in Izbica, Poland, where conservation work has been underway since 2006.. The cemetery was established in the second half of the 18th century and severely damaged during the World War II.

Since 2006 the Foundation has pursued a program of cemetery protection and preservation. A monument to the Jewish community of Izbica. The monument was funded by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in cooperation with the Foundation was unveiled in November 2006.

According to the Foundation, here is a History of the Project:

During the World War II the Jewish cemetery in Izbica was desecrated, its fence was destroyed and the matzevot were used for constructing the Gestapo prison building. In September 2006, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage, along with Tvschoenfilm, demolished the former prison building. After the demolition works were completed, the matzevot were moved back to the cemetery: those that were best preserved were installed on the walls of an ohel of the famous Tzadik of Izbica, Mordechai Josef Leiner, the others were secured. In the future they will be built in the cemetery’s new fence. The works were filmed by Tvschoenfilm; they will be used in a documentary about Kurt Engels, the boss of Gestapo in Izbica and one of the war criminals involved in the Reinhardt Operation. The film will be aired by the German ARD Television.

In autumn 2006 the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany had joined forces with the Foundation to realize the IZBICA JEWISH CEMETERY COMMEMORATION PROJECT. The financial support of the Embassy allowed the Foundation to erect a monument commemorating the Jewish community of Izbica, publish pamphlets presenting the history of the town (in Polish and in English), organize educational activities for the students of the Izbica School Complex and, finally, to trace the geodesic boundaries of the cemetery and design a new fence.

On November 16th, 2006, a ceremony of unveiling of the monument commemorating the Jewish community of Izbica took place. The ceremony was attended by the Israeli Ambassador, Mr. David Peleg, the German Ambassador, Mr. Reinhard Schweppe, a representative of the President's Office, Ms. Malgorzata Zaluska, the Chief Rabbi of Galicia, Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a deputy bishop of the Lublin Archidiocese, bishop Mieczyslaw Cislo, representatives of the local authorities and the Izbica Mayor. The ceremony was also witnessed by a crowd of local citizens and children from the School Complex in Izbica.

The teachers and students of the School Complex in Izbica have been taking care of the Jewish cemetery in Izbica for many years, trying to discover the past of their town. In June 2003 the school, with help from Robert Kuwałek, Director of the Belzec Memorial Museum, started cooperating with the German organization Bildungswerk Stanislaw Hantz from Kassel. In September 2005 the School Complex in Izbica joined the educational program "To Bring Memory Back", launched by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage.

Within the framework of the „To Bring Memory Back” program the students take care of the Jewish cemetery, discover Jewish history and culture, and explore the history of the Jewish community of Izbica. They also undertake public activities leading to bring to the inhabitants of Izbica the memory of their past.

On December 19, 2006, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage organized for the students of the Izbica School Complex a workshop on Jewish culture and history, dedicated also to the educational program's method and the realization of public activities.We certainly hope that thanks to the workshop, led by experienced animators, young people of Izbica will manage to invite many other inhabitants of their town to join them in taking care of the cemetery and exploring the past of Izbica.

The final stage of the IZBICA JEWISH CEMETERY COMMEMORATION PROJECT will be fencing the cemetery. The cost of this undertaking is estimated for 50 000 €. The Foundation is now seeking partners who will help us to complete this task.

Read more in the highly informative and well illustrated Brochure 'Izbica. A Story of a Place'.

Romania: Jewish cemetery in Botosani, Romania Vandalized in April

Romania: Jewish cemetery in Botosani, Romania Vandalized in April

The Jewish cemetery in Botosani, Romania was vandalized on April 23 (?), 2009. According to architect Lucia Apostol of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania, (as reported to Ruth Ellen Gruber) "the desecration was reported in local and national media. In all, 24 tombstone stones were destroyed, 21 of them very badly and two of them so badly smashed that it is impossible to tell whose graves they marked. Total damage is estimated at $10,000. Police suspect four teenagers of the attack -- two of them 14 years old and two of them 16."

For more and picture see:

Romania -- Jewish cemetery in Botosani Vandalized

Poland: New Monuments erected in Gdansk on Anniversary of Kinderstransport

Poland: New Monuments Erected in Gdansk on Anniversary of Kinderstransport

(ISJM) Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland reports that on May 6-7, 2009, the 70th anniversary of the Kinderstransport (evacuation of Jewish children from Germany, Austria, the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk), Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Poland to England between 1938-1939) took place in Gdansk. The Kinderstransport saved the lives of about 11 thousand Jewish children just in the months before hte outbreak of the Second World War and the onslaught of the Holocaust. About 130 children came from Gdansk (formerly Danzig) in four transports.

A monument to the Kindertransports was unveiled in Gdansk as well as new matzevot (gravestones) in the cemetery marking the graves of Rabbis Elchanan Ashkenasi and Meir Posner.

Synagogues and Cemeteries by Shirley Moskowitz Gruber

Top: Shirley Moskowitz. Interior of Synagogue, Pinczow (Poland) and
Below: Cemetery, Rymanow (Poland). Monotypes, 1993.
Collection of Jacob W. Gruber.

Synagogues and Cemeteries by Shirley Moskowitz Gruber
by Samuel D. Gruber

It’s a day after Mother’s Day, but I would like to say something about my own mother, the artist Shirley Moskowitz Gruber (1920-2007). She was a great person and a great mom, but for the purposes of this blog (Jewish art and monuments) I’ll mention some of her artwork. Though she was best known for her landscapes and cityscapes – and especially her work in Italy from the 1970s until shortly before her death in 2007, she also over the years produced a significant number of works devoted to Jewish themes. Shirley was an artist who was Jewish – but not ostensibly or exclusively a Jewish artist. In fact, she never, as far I can recall created any Jewish ritual art or had much interest in it. She did over the years, however, produce several works the subjects of which were Jewish ceremonies. A good example of this is the lino-cut print of children in a Simchas Torah procession made in the early 1960s. This work, like much her output in those years centered on children – especially her own.

Shirley Moskowitz (n.d., early 1960s) Simchath Torah. Lino-cut print.
Collection of Samuel Gruber & Judtih Meighan)

Much later, beginning in the 1990s, she came back to Jewish themes because of the work of two of her children – my sister Ruth and I. In June 1993, she took a break from her work in Italy and traveled with Ruth by car through the Czech Republic and Slovakia to Poland, on her way to surprise me there (where I was leading a tour with Carol Herselle Krinsky sponsored by the World Monuments Fund). Along the way Ruth and Mom stopped at a lot of cemeteries and synagogues which Mom sketched or photographed, and then when she returned to her press in Morruzze (Italy), she produced a series of vivid monoprints recording and interpreting these scenes. A few year later, a visiting friend from Poland saw some of these works and insisted they be shown in Poland, and that began a ten-year traveling itinerary for the works organized by the Jewish Cultural Center in Krakow, that ended at the then-new Jewish Museum in Galicia.



These works have now returned to the family, but I thought I would show some of them here. Today, these scenes and many like them are well-known, but in 1993 they were still a representation of a lost and mostly forgotten world. Its importnat to me that Shirley viewed the remains with a sense of loss, but she also treated them as parts of the landscape as she did the ruins of Italy (or derelict buildings in Philadelphia) which she often painted.

For those who would like to know more abut the life and art of Shirley Moskowitz Gruber, the family has recently created a website. On this you can read an essay about her work that I wrote in 1996 for a retrospective exhibition on the occasion of her 75th birthday. There is also a lovely eulogy by Rabbi Laura Geller, and a memorial essay by Ruth Ellen Gruber. This is a work in progress – we are gradually locating her work and having it photographed. If any of my readers have memories of Shirley or her work, we invite you to contribute these to the site.

USA: Houston (Texas) Jewish Cemetery Named Texas Historic Site

USA: Houston (Texas) Jewish Cemetery Named Texas Historic Site

(ISJM) The (Houston) Jewish Herald-Voice (April 23, 2009) reports that Houston's West Dallas Cemetery of Congregation Beth Israel was named an historic cemetery by the Texas historical Commission. a dedication ceremony to mark the designation was helped on April 26th, 2009. An historic marker was installed.

The cemetery was founded in 1844 to serve an Orthodox congregation. The congregation built is synagogue (Beth Israel), in 1854 - it was the first synagogue constructed in Texas. Located at 1207 West Dallas, the land was purchased by recently Jewish arrivals from Central Europe - Bohemia and Bavaria. Graves from this earliest period in the cemetery's history are located in the northwest corner of the site. In 1936, as space in the cemetery was limited, a mausoleum was erected for above ground burials.

To read more about the cemetery and the ceremony see
"A marker for a sacred place: 165 years old, Beth Israel’s West Dallas Cemetery is oldest Jewish burial ground in the state," from the Houston Chronicle (April 27, 2009).

Czech Republic: US First Lady Michelle Obama in Prague's Jewish Quarter

Michelle Obama, Leo Pavlat and Micheala Sidenberg at Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague; Michelle Obama at Tomb of Rabbi Loew; Michelle Obama and Prague Jewish leaders at Altneushul. Photos: Prague Jewish Museum

Michelle Obama in Prague's Old Jewish Quarter

By Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) We know that US First Lady Michelle Obama has a cousin who is a rabbi in Chicago, and is no stranger at Chicago's Temple Isaiah-KAM, located right across the street from the Obama's Hyde Park House. But now Mrs. Obama has added some history to her Jewish Studies curriculum by visiting Prague's Jewish quarter, and spending time at the Pinkas Synagogue and Altneushul, and at the Old Jewish Cemetery. Read the Prague Jewish Museum press release here.

I am a big fan of Michelle Obama, and not just because we are both Princeton alumni. I just think she smart, cool, elegant, beautiful and seems to know how to have fun, too. My admiration grew this week as Michelle took the time on the presidential European tour to visit some of the landmarks of Prague’s Jewish quarter. Her interest was probably a politically smart move, but I think her interest is real, and her understanding is deep enough to know that these sites – though very old – resonate with meaning and still carry great relevance today. Indeed, every generation can retell the story of Prague Jewish monuments and their history and learn new lessons. For the most part the Prague Jewish Museum and the Czech Jewish community have done a good job doing this. But in this recession, visitorship to the Museum has been down. I hope Mrs. Obama’s visit stirs new interest.

Congratulations to my colleagues in Prague - especially Prague Jewish Museum Director Leo Pavlat who was Michelle's guide, -but also to Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic Jiří Daníček, and Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic Tomáš Kraus, whose hard work and dedication for almost 20 years laid the foundation for the "Czech Jewish Miracle," that has seen the revival of Jewish life, and also an amazing organizational commitment to the protection and preservation of Jewish sites throughout all of the Czech Republic (I had the pleasure of being in the Czech Republic a few weeks ago and seeing some of the newest achievements, and I will be writing about them soon).

Mrs. Obama visited the 16th-century Pinkus Synagogue built up against the old cemetery. It is an important example of the mix of Gothic and Renaissance styles, but today is mostly celebrated as an extremely effective and moving memorial to the approximately 78,000 Czech Jews sent to their deaths in the Holocaust. This monument – with the inscribed names and dates of birth and death of the victims, was first created in the 1950s as one of the earliest Holocaust memorials. Its form – the long lists of names - has been copied in many subsequent memorial monuments (including Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC), not far from the Obama’s new residence. But the names were destroyed and the memorial was closed from 1968 until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. One of the first acts of new President and former dissident Vaclav Havel was to promise the memorial’s renewal – a task carried out between 1992 and 1995. I don’t know if Mrs. Obama was told all this, but the Pinkas is now a monument to Jewish life in the Prague Ghetto, a Memorial to the Holocaust and a monument to contemporary democratic ideals. The building was damaged again in the floods that hit Prague in 2003. It was quickly restored with help of local and international donors (including the Jewish heritage Program of the World Monuments Fund).

Mrs Obama spent time in the upstairs exhibitions at the Pinkas Synagogue, where copies of artworks of the child victims of Terezin and Auschwitz are on view. I am sure that she will with her many lessons – though no doubt she is already intensely aware of them – about the preciousness of children, the madness of bigotry, and power of art.

Mrs. Obama then visited the Old Jewish cemetery. She stopped at the grave of Rabbi Loew, the MaHaRaL, the most famous gravestone in the cemetery. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of the Rabbi Loew, and a major exhibition about his life, work and times will open in Prague this coming August (more on this later).

I hope that Mrs. Obama was also shown the elaborate gravestone of Hendl, the wife of Jewish financier (and first Jew raised to the nobility) Jacob Bashevi, from 1628. This is the only elaborate sarcophagus style tombstone for a woman in the entire Old Jewish Cemetery. Hendl was honored (as was Michele) for being the wife of a famous leader (but she may have been honored in her own right for her learning and charitable deeds). The epitaph states in part:

“…The gracious Hendl, daughter of Ebrl Gerorim, may the memory of the just be blessed, wife of the head and noble leader of his generation, k’m’r’ Jacob, son of k’m’r Abrahamb(at)’ Sche(eba), may the memory of the just be blessed. And Jacob set up this memorial I sorrow / and all the people cried and lamented / over this noble lady, our leader / buried and hidden here / gone is her glory, gone her magnificence / as the voice of the crowds in the city of the faithful / we all follow her paths / Alas! for the pious, the model of humility / virtue, chastity and purity / she left this world as pure as when she entered it / hastening to fulfill the commandments, the lesser and the greater / and ever stood in the front rank / hastening morning and evening to prayers / and her heart was turned towards God in faith / in awe, in pious modesty, with clear speech / in the order and according to the commands of Rabbi Hemenun / commandments for a light and learning for a torch / her hand stretched out, her right hand grasping firmly / …(translation from Milada Vilimjova, The Prague Ghetto (Prague: Aventinum, 1990), English edition translated by Iris Urwin, 1993), p. 178.

Perhaps Mrs. Obama was also shown the grave of Rivka, daughter of Meir Tikotin, who died in the early 1600s. She is known as the first Jewish woman author in Prague. Her works (known only in fragments) on infant and child care, and her handbook for midwives and young mothers, might resonate with Michelle in her role as “First Mom”

Mrs Obama ended her visit to the Jewish Quarter with a visit and presentation ceremony at the Altneushul, the Jewish treasure of Prague. Needless to say, the group photo was taken in the main sanctuary, with Czech Jewish leaders lined up along the north wall. As this was a visit, it was OK for Mrs. Obama to view the space, though of course no woman can enter here for prayers. I wonder if Michelle was shown the little “listening window” visible in the photo to the upper left.. It’s the window from the women’s annex.

There are many inscriptions on the walls of the Altneushul, mostly abbreviations of well known passage from scripture. I hope Mrs. Obama was also shown the abbreviation recalling Psalm 34:15: “Shun evil and do good.” This may already be the Obamas’ motto. If not, it should be.