Our new Have Your Say op-ed follows on from our report on Jewish heritage experts decrying the destruction of the oldest part of the historic Jewish cemetery in Sataniv, western Ukraine, by a Haredi activist claiming to restore it.
Many scores of centuries-old matzevot have been uprooted, reset in poured concrete bases, and artificially arranged in straight rows that bear no relation to the original sites of the stones and the burials they marked.
In his personal essay, titled The Jewish Cemetery in Sataniv: a Destroyed Monument of Jewish Culture. Vandalism and Desecration Disguised as “Care,” Dr. Boris Khaimovich, Chief Curator of the Museum of Jewish History in Russia movingly describes the cemetery, its history, its art, and its significance and brands its destruction as barbaric and blasphemous.
A world expert on Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Khaimovich was part of a team that documented the Sataniv cemetery in 1992.
Mourning the loss of this valuable monument of Jewish culture, he calls for control measures and oversight to prevent further such episodes.
Click here to read the Have Your Say
3 comments on “New Have Your Say personal essay by Dr. Boris Khaimovich: The Jewish Cemetery in Sataniv — a Destroyed Monument of Jewish Culture. Vandalism and Desecration Disguised as “Care””
This is just terrible. I am a descendent of Ukrainian (Galician Jews) and am deeply concerned that this may/could happen to my ancestor‘s graves. Steps must immediately be taken by authorities to prevent such activities from happening to other sacred sites.
Jewish Taliban
This is deeply shameful. After years of German-nazistic destruction, of post-war neglect, now this “pious” ignorant, un-Jewish Jewish vandalism. It seems that there are several active Jewish initiatives and projects under way in Eastern Europe that might see each other as competitors in a sacred endeavour. And there seems to be an individual, named by Dr. Khaimovich, who strives to top them all in an utterly narcisstic and ignorant act of zealotry. … Difficult to fathom.
One can only hope that B.Khaimovich and his team have documented both photographically as well as textually that proud and humble Beit haHaiim in Sataniv…