Description

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This is the first comprehensive work on metropolitan Jewish cemeteries in Central and Eastern Europe on an international level. Based on a comparative analysis of cemeteries from the Baltic to the Balkans, and from Russia to Germany, it touches upon art history, architecture and planning, landscaping, Jewish studies, and Jewish history. An important aspect of this work is the cultural background of Jewish funerary art: Christian-Jewish dialog, the inter-Jewish influence between different European regions (including the Reform Movement), and the Ashkenazi-Sephardi dialog in some parts of the old continent. It is also the first work which touches upon the entirety of issues related to Jewish burial places of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: urban level, morphology of cemeteries, gravestone typology, stylistic analysis, symbols and inscriptions, tahara and ceremonial halls, wells, benches, pergolas, row-and section-markers, and gravel holders. This book is intended for a wide variety of readers: municipal decision makers, urban planners, architects and restorers, cemetery management and maintenance, art historians, scholars of Jewish studies, and the wider public interested in Jewish heritage and funerary culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

About the Author

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Rudolf Klein is a professor of modern architectural history at Szent István University in Budapest. He has researched and lectured at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Kyoto Institute of Technology, and numerous universities in central and southeastern Europe. He researches 19th and 20th century architectural history and theory as well as Ashkenazi synagogue architecture of modern times.