Jewish gravestones are personalized in specific ways: through names and dates; through epitaphs; through symbolic carved imagery; through, sometimes, family history timelines. From the latter part of the 19th century, gravestones in a number of Jewish cemeteries also (as was the practice in Christian cemeteries) began bearing laminated photographs or other portraits of the deceased.
We have noted this in cemeteries in various countries: from Italy, to the Czech Republic, to Romania, to Ukraine, to elsewhere in the former Soviet Union…
Few cemeteries we have visited feature as many laminated photo portraits as we noticed on a recent visit to the Sephardic (main) Jewish cemetery in Belgrade, Serbia.
Their numbers created an environment in this crowded “House of the Living” that was both eerie and intimate at the same time.
Here are a few of them. (Click HERE and HERE to see our earlier articles reflecting on portraits on gravestones in other countries.)
1 comment on “Faces of Time in the Belgrade Jewish cemetery: a crowded “House of the Living””
Great shots, great text.
According to my experience, in Orthodox Christian countries Jews had more images on their tombstones. Certainly, in a Protestant milieu this habit was marginal – see for instance the Jewish Cemetery Berlin-Weissensee.