The Jewish Cemetery in Kalarash
The old Jewish Cemetery in Kalarash is located on a hill in the center of town, that rises behind buildings on the main street. A visitor to Kalarash in 1993 reported that there appeared to have been restoration to the cemetery. In the photograph above, the cemetery looks well-kept. The gravestones seem to be in good condition and some of them are surrounded by metal fences. In the section photographed on the bottom, the landscaping of the cemetery is wilder and the graves in varying condition. There are reported to be about 1,000 gravestones in the old Jewish cemetery. There also is a Jewish section in the non-sectarian town cemetery, which is where most Jewish burials take place today.
In the book Carved Memories: Heritage in Stone from the Russian Jewish Pale (Rizzoli International Publications, 2000), photographer David Goberman includes pictures of two gravestones from the old section of the Jewish cemetery in Kalarash (pp. 148-150). One gravestone, said to be from the 1850s, is dedicated to "the daughter of (illegible)" and has carved upon it a lion catching a butterfly. A second gravestone, said to be from between 1850-1900, memorializes "a young man Eliahu Eleazar" and has upon it hands arched in the priestly blessing. For reasons relating to copyright, the photographs are not reproduced here.
Credits: Text and page design copyrighted © 2007-2008 by Helene Kenvin. Top photograph copyrighted © 1993 by Miriam Weiner Photo Archives; used with permission, courtesy of Routes to Roots Foundation, Inc., Secaucus, NJ. Bottom photograph: copyrighted © Miriam Weiner Photo Archive; used with permission. We are grateful to Miriam Wiener of the Routes to Roots Foundation for information about the condition of the cemetery in 1993. Page created by Helene Kenvin. All rights reserved.