jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and mass grave sites in ukraine

III.4 (b)
Types of Gravestones and Other Cemetery Features
Historic Jewish tombstones are conspicuous in decoration and symbols. The decoration (simple
plant motifs and other decorative elements) has developed since the Middle Ages. It has been
influenced by the various styles in art, often reflecting different regional and local characteristics,
the tradition of individual stone-cutters, and the type of stone used. Relief images, situated in the
upper part of the gravestone, are often symbols describing the descendants of a specific, ancient
Hebrew family or tribe. Symbols of a trade or profession or animals denoting family names are
also used.
Monuments, depending of the date of burial, were decorated by bas-reliefs and texts of embossed
or cutout letters. Images and texts on the monuments were often painted in colors, as many as
five on one monument. Each region had its own artistic traditions that reflected folk, symbolic,
and religious traditions of local Jewish communities.
The inscriptions on the gravestones (epigraphs) were in Hebrew from the Middle Ages through
the 19 th century, but by the mid-19 th century bilingual inscriptions – Hebrew and German –
began to appear. Yiddish and Russian inscriptions soon followed. Depending on the area of
Ukraine, some 20 th century gravestones have inscriptions in German or Russian only, with
abbreviations of traditional Hebrew formulae. Purely Hebrew inscriptions, however, are still
used on tombstones of Orthodox Jews.
Because it takes a long time to carve a tombstone, Jewish law dictates that a year should pass
before a stone is put in place. This also creates a specific period during which mourning is
deemed appropriate. When referring then, for example, to “a tombstone from 1770” we mean a
tombstone dated 1770 (i.e., the date of death) but completed and erected in the cemetery most
probably the following year, 1771.
Polonne (Khmelnytska oblast) was an acclaimed center of Hasidic learning between the 17 th and
19 th centuries, though only two Jewish families live there now. The town had, for instance, the
first Hasidic publishing house in Eastern Europe. The old cemetery in Polonne still has thirty
18 th century gravestones, some dating from as early as 1727 and 1730. These tombstones have
finely carved borders with animal, floral, and architectural motifs. The block script resembles
the printing styles of the same period. 37
Some villages, especially in the Transcarpathian region (Zakarpatska oblast), would maintain
two Jewish cemeteries: one for the Reform rite Jews (the so-called Neolog rite), the other for
Orthodox Jews.
37 In addition to the works of David Goberman, already mentioned, there are several studies of Jewish gravestones
that illustrate the range of epigraphic techniques and symbolic elements employed on traditional Eastern European
gravestones of the type found throughout much of Ukraine. See: Department of Art History, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Revival: Rubbings of Jewish Gravestones from the Ukraine (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
1992); Petr Ehl, Arno Parik and Jiri Fiedler, Old Bohemian and Moravian Cemeteries. (Prague: Paseka, 1991); and
Monika Krajewska, A Tribe of Stones: Jewish Cemeteries in Poland (Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1993).
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