What’s so interesting about Jewish cemeteries? / Co je tak zajimaveho na zidovskych hrbitovech?

The Czech Republic currently has about 340 Jewish cemeteries from which the largest ones are located in Prague-Josefov, Mikulov and Trebic. Prague also owns the oldest tomb stones made in the 15th century. What is so interesting about Jewish cemeteries? Compared to the Christian cemeteries, these, according to the Jewish rules, cannot be messed with at all. That means that if in the past there was a need for more space to bury their “new” dead people they couldn’t just enlarge or expand the already existing cemetery lot. The only thing one could do is to bury the old graves under a bunch of soil and start over again, with a new layer of graves on top of the old ones. The old tomb stones were pulled out of the “old layer” and put into the “new layer”(isn’t that wild??). The tomb stone writings were originally written only in Hebrew; at the end of the 19th century some Czech words were added in. In the 20th century the writings were written strictly either in Czech or German but most of the sentences would end with 5 characteristic Hebrew letters.

Jewish people started settling down in Czech lands in the beginning of the 10th century. However, the local society had not quite accepted them until after 1948 when they finally gained equal civil rights. The fact that the Jewish nation has always been an addition to the Czech culture and economy can be seen from the number of celebrity names such as Rothshild, Petschek, Moser, Mahler,Freud, Husseri or Kafka. In the middle of the 19th century the Czech lands were occupied with as many as 140,000 Jews. During 1930’s the number decreased to about 120,000. Thanks to the Nazi massacres during the W.W.II that number diminished to only 20,000 (!!) after the war. Today the Jewish community obtains about 3,000 registered members.

CZ: Ceska Republika ma nyni kolem 340 zidovskych hrbitovu, z nichz nejvetsimi jsou hrbitovy v Praze-Josefove, Mikulove a Trebici. Praha take vlastni ty nejstarsi nahrobky, ktere pochazeji jiz z 15. stoleti. Zide se zacali v Ceske Republice usazovat jiz od pocatku 10. stoleti, ale spolecnosti nebyli zcela prijati az po roce 1948, kdy ziskali obcanskou rovnopravnost. Dukazem toho, ze se Zide vyzname zaslouzili o hospodarsky a kulturni vzestup Cech jsou zname osobnosti jako Rothschild, Petschek, Moser, Mahler, Freud, Husseri nebo Kafka. Nejvice Zidu obyvalo CR v 19. stoleti, kolem 140.000. Toto cislo se zmensilo na 120.000 ve 30. letech a po durhe svetove valce v Cechach zbylo pouze kolem 20.000 Zidu, a to diky Nacistickym masakrum. Dnes je v CR nahlaseno kolem 3.000 clenu zidovskych komunit. Co je tak zajimaveho na zidovskych hrobech? Oproti hrobum krestanskym, tyto hrbitovy podle zidovskych pravidel nemohou byt zadnym zpusobem narusene. To znamena, ze jestlize v minulosti potrebovali vice mista a hrbitov plosne rozsirit bylo zakazano, stary hrbitov proste pohrbili pod vrstvou nove zeminy. Zemreli pak byli pohrbeni nad hroby starymi s tim, ze nahrobky z puvodni vrstvy byli zasazeny do vrstvy nove. Napisy na nahrobcich byli do 19. stoleti pouze hebrejske, pote hebrejsko-ceske. Ve 2o. stoleti byli popsany pouze jazykem ceskym nebo nemeckym, ale tato slova byla vestinou ukoncena peti hebrejskymi pismeny.

Source: http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/domov/index_view.php?id=263150