Beth Olam. The Jewish Cemeteries in South Bohemia

The aim of this book is to introduce Jewish cemeteries of South Bohemia based on documenting their current state and long-term archival research carried out over several years. There are 49 Jewish cemeteries with almost ten thousand tombstones in the territory of the present-day South Bohemia Region, and 43 cemeteries have been processed into encyclopedic entries in this book. The informational analysis and interpretation is related to sites in the historical territory of the Prácheň and Bechyně (later Tábor and Budějovice) Regions and are now administrative unit of the South Bohemian Region.

The book is divided into several essential sections. The first part gives a brief overview of the history of Jewish settlement in the Czech lands from the earliest times to the present, with special reference to the South Bohemian region. It is followed by an outline of the history of Jewish cemeteries in South Bohemia, the specifics of their founding (supplemented by examples from founding documents and excerpts from town registers), and their modern history, including their turbulent fate during the 20th century. The core of the publication is formed by a detailed catalogue of 41 South Bohemian localities where Jewish cemeteries are located (two cemeteries are in Rožmberk nad Vltavou and Tábor). Each entry has a uniform encyclopaedic structure. Cemeteries where tombstones are not currently present, because they were removed or destroyed in the not too distant past, are not considered to be extinct if there are still people buried on the site and the exact size of their area is known to us (this applies to the two cemeteries in Tábor). On the contrary, medieval and early modern cemeteries that do not meet these criteria are perceived as extinct (České Budějovice, Písek, Týn nad Vltavou).

Contents:

JEWISH CEMETERIES IN THE SOUTH BOHEMIAN CONTEXT 

• Brief overview of the history of Jewish settlement in pre-modern times 
• Founding of the Jewish cemeteries in South Bohemia 
• Modern history of the Jews of South Bohemia and the fate of their cemeteries in the 20th century 
• Tombstones and their specificities 
• Language of tombstone texts 
• Structure of inscriptions
• Artistic character and symbolism of tombstones 
• Stonemasons 
• Research methods and definition of the field of interest 
• Locations of cemeteries and numbers of preserved tombstones 
• The oldest preserved tombstones 
• Map of Jewish cemeteries with preserved tombstones 

CATALOGUE 

Bibliography

Archival sources 

List of photographers and copyright holders 

Abbreviations used