Last week the ESJF visited Lepel, Belarus as part of our ongoing project of educating local people in the towns and villages where we have previously fenced Jewish cemeteries under funding from the Auswärtiges Amt.

Meeting at the Lepel museum, historians, librarians and the local community gathered for the ESJF’s event on the importance of preserving Jewish cemeteries. Participants learnt about Jewish customs associated with burials and discussed stories they knew about their local burial site. For more information about the history of the local Jewish community, a book on Jewish life in Lepel was presented that was published in 2015 by the Center Sefer as well as the ESJF’s various publications on Jewish cemeteries (see links below).

Thank you Ida Shenderovich and Alex Litin as well as all who supported the organisation of this event and those who attended!

– ESJF publications:
https://www.esjf-surveys.org/publications-and-reports/

– Jewish Life in Lepel (available in Russian) by Центр Сэфер:
http://sefercenter.org/lepel_sbornik.pdf