The Tartu old Jewish cemetery

The Tartu old Jewish cemetery was the town's first Jewish burial ground, in the Raadi-Kruusamäe district. Today a single gravestone remains.

The gate of the Tartu Jewish cemetery. Photo: PillePrix (CC BY 4.0), Wikimedia Commons.

History

The cemetery was established in 1859, when after the Crimean War the Tartu garrison held enough Jewish soldiers of the Nicholas era. The first to be buried here was Dov Ber Wainrok, a merchant from the Kaunas region. The plot was about 0.16 hectares; it was enlarged in 1870, but by 1895 it had run out of space and the community founded a new cemetery, leaving the old one unused. In 1937 it still had large trees and several valuable headstones.

Destruction

Over the decades of the occupation the cemetery dwindled almost to nothing: by the 1970s two gravestones remained, and today a single granite marker with a rounded top. An information plaque was installed in the mid-2010s. The site is protected as cultural monument no. 4322 (which also includes the Muslim cemetery); the protected area is about 0.145 hectares.

See also

• No one escaped the Soviet Union (overview)

• The destruction of sacred sites and cemeteries in the Soviet Union

• The graveyard as the community's backbone

• The Tartu Muslim cemetery

• Tallinn's old Jewish cemetery

Sources: Tartu old Jewish cemetery (Wikipedia); monument no. 4322 (heritage register); Tartu Postimees.