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Tartu's Cemetery Restoration

From the Jewish Community of Tartu:

There are 3 cemeteries in Tartu.  The oldest founded in 1859 and closed in 1895, as a separate cemetery hasn’t preserved.  Only several lonely stone plates remained.

In 1895, the city government allocated free plot for the Jewish cemetery on Roosi Street.  The last time people were buried there in first years after the Second World War.  There are buried many prominent figures of Jewish community, who had done a lot for a city as well: Rabbi Meier Kropman, Eliser Ferkin, Itschok Kahn, H. Selmanovits, A.J. Jakobson, M. Usvanski, Kropmann, Kaplan, Bakst, M. Flakst, etc.  Many of the tombstones are of great artistic value.  The cemetery is taken care of, but cemetery’s fence and the most artistically valued tombstones are in need of urgent repairs.

The third Jewish cemetery was built in 1935 and is located on Rapina highroad.  Mostly people were buried there after the Second World War.  Right at the entrance to the cemetery a building is standing.  There are the room for ceremonies, watchman’s apartment, and a storeroom for inventory.  The territory is fenced; the part of the fence at the entrance was reconstructed in 1993 on the money of Swedish Jewish Community.  The rest of the fence requires the reconstruction, as well as the building itself, which was damaged in the fire this year.  Rabbi Mostowski, Mr. Baron, and many others who did a lot for our community are buried there.  The cemetery is taken care of by the community itself.  The major repairs of the fence and of the building require major expenditures.

Apparently, this will be the last Jewish cemetery in the university town Tartu, because the community is very small.

Calculations of Costs of the Reconstruction Works on the Jewish Cemeteries in Tartu
 

Lohkva
1. Wire-gauge fence (330m)	34,500 EEK
2. Reconstruction of the room for ritualss and the store room (altogether, 50.8 square m)	76,700 EEK
3. Cemetery building front repairs	31,200 EEK
Sum total	142,400 EEK
Roosi
1. Replacement of the rotten wooden fence with the concrete one (70 m long, 2 m high)	109,800 EEK
2. Repair of the metal gate (3 m wide, 2.2 m high)	14,600 EEK
Sum total	124,400 EEK
Sum total, both cemeteries	266,800 EEK

 

The head of the Jewish Community of Tartu,
Vulf Susan