Jewish cemetery in Ukraine ‘desecrated’ by renovations
The damaage to this jewel of Jewish culture is heartbreaking
A HASIDIC group trying to restore a centuries-old Jewish cemetery in Eastern Europe has instead damaged it so badly that the result is “heart-breaking desecration”, Poland’s chief rabbi said.
The site in the village of Sataniv, Ukraine is considered by scholars to be one of the jewels of Jewish history in the region.
Jews first settled in village in the 16th century. The cemetery on the outskirts dates back at least to the late 17th century. The tombstones are particularly valued for their elaborate carvings.
The cemetery has been undergoing restoration by Agudas Ohalei Tzadikkim. Founded by Israeli Hasid, Yisroel Meir Gabbai, the organisation says it is dedicated to “identifying and rehabilitating Jewish holy sites in eastern Europe”.
But the work has greatly damaged the cemetery, say a number of historians, researchers, and communal leaders.
Photographs taken by a local journalist and shared with the JC appear to show how many tombstones have been dug up or moved, lined up in neat rows, and recast in concrete without any regard for their original location.
Poland’s chief rabbi Michael Schrudich said in a statement: “We no longer know where any grave is located, or even how the graves are distributed throughout the cemetery”.
Rabbi Schrudrich added: “The desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Sataniv is heart-breaking, sadder still is the fact that it was carried out by a Jew who claims to be preserving it.”
Boris Khaimovich, chief curator of the Museum of Jewish History in Russia, wrote of his shock in a letter to Jewish Heritage Europe, the newspaper that first reported the story. “We have never before encountered this kind of vandalism,” he wrote.
With approximately 2,350 residents, Sataniv lies in western Ukraine about 110 miles south-east of Lviv. Sergey Kravtsov, research fellow at Hebrew University’s Center for Jewish Art, described it as “an important place of Jewish memory”.
He said: “The tombstones reflect the importance of the community. They are a treasure-house of texts, of iconography, of art.”
The cemetery “is one of the jewels of Jewish material culture in eastern Europe”, Ilia Rodov, professor in the Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University, added. The carvings on the tombstones – some “very elaborate” – add up to a “rich gallery” of local, folkloric Jewish symbols, Mr Rodov explained, providing a link between the medieval and early modern worlds of Jewish art and heritage.
Mr Rodov characterised the cemetery as “unique” for its “richness and variety” after surviving the devastation of war, the Holocaust and the Soviet period.
“Now it is in danger of destruction. It’s really terrible,” he said. “I realise the intentions of those who replaced the tombstones were good, but there is a lack of knowledge and understanding concerning local Jewish culture.”
Mr Gabbai’s work goes beyond Ukraine. Rabbi Schrudich claimed that “there are a number of other examples of Jewish cemeteries that Mr Gabbai has desecrated in Europe, including Poland”.
Rabbi Yehoshua Ellis of the Rabbinical Commission for Jewish Cemeteries in Poland (RCC) criticised the work of
Mr Gabbai, telling the JC: “He claims to be the Indiana Jones of graves. I have no example of him going through the proper channels.”
Rabbi Ellis cited the example of the Jewish cemetery in Zelechów in eastern Poland. There the RCC located the tomb of a prominent rabbi and, working with the deceased’s relatives, erected headstones as temporary markers.
He says Mr Gabbai erected a wooden shelter over the gravestones. Photographs shared with the JC appear to show one of the shelter’s legs driven right into the centre of the gravesite.
Rabbi Ellis said: “We have been speaking with people in the cemetery restoration world for a long time about him and what he does, trying to warn people.
“The work he’s done in Sataniv, uprooting every matzevah [tombstone] in the cemetery and putting it in a different place, this is a new level of desecration. It’s really mind-blowing.”
Mr Gabbai did not return the JC’s request for comment. A post on Agudas Ohalei Tzadikkim’s website states Mr Gabbai has been invested in the cemetery’s condition for two decades and that many tombstones were “on the verge of collapse”.
“In recent weeks, extensive renovations have been carried out throughout the Sataniv cemetery,” the post states. “Hundreds of tombstones” which were “discovered underground” were restored and placed “on top of a concrete elevation in their place with the respect they deserve”.