This cemetery in Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region is a significant monument of Jewish funerary art from the 17th–18th centuries. Around 2,000 tombstones have been preserved, including one marking the grave of Rabbi Avraham Hayot, author of Holekh Tamim and son of Yitzhak of Prague, author of Afei Ravravei (1538–1610).
The ESJF installed the fence around the Horodok Jewish cemetery with financial support from the Auswärtiges Amt German Federal Foreign Office.
The Jewish community of Horodok
According to some sources, Jews first settled in Horodok before the mid-17th century. In 1653, many were massacred when Cossack forces captured the town’s castle. At least one surviving tombstone in the Jewish cemetery is believed to date from this period.
By the mid-18th century, the community had recovered. In 1765, records show 645 Jews living in Horodok.
By 1870, Horodok’s Jewish population had reached around 2,500, accounting for roughly a third of the town’s residents. The Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (1881) records one synagogue and four Jewish prayer houses in the town, and notes that one of its agricultural suburbs (folwarks) was known as “Kosher.” Throughout the 19th century, the Jewish community played a central role in Horodok’s economic and social life.
The community peaked in 1910, reaching 4,020 people — 36% of Horodok’s population.
With the establishment of Soviet power, the Jewish population had declined to 2,329 by 1939, though the community remained active, with several Jewish schools and Zionist organizations operating during the 1920s.
On July 8, 1941, Wehrmacht forces occupied Horodok. In October 1942, the majority of the town’s Jewish residents were deported to Yarmolyntsi, where they were murdered. The remaining 103 Jews were executed during the winter of 1942.