Verkhnyodniprovsk Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
The exact date of the cemetery’s establishment is unknown, it can be stated that it was established no later than the early 20th century, as the only surviving legible gravestone dates to 1911. The cemetery was demolished in the 1970’s.
There is not much information on the Jewish community of Verkhnyodniprovs’k. Jews first settled there in the early 19th century. According to the census of 1847, there were 265 Jewish residents. In 1861, there were 3 synagogues and the rabbi was Moses Rubin. In the 1890s, the Rabbi was Simkha Ginsburg and from 1905 it was Leib Heifetz.
Jews were mostly involved in the tailoring profession. In 1909, there was a Talmud Torah and 3 Jewish secondary schools. In 1910, the Jewish population was at its height, with 4,113 Jewish residents (33.8% of the town).
In the 1910s, Leiba Girshovich Dotlibov was the rabbi. In 1920, the Jewish community survived a pogrom and by 1926, there were only 914 Jews remaining (15.5%). By 1939, the Jewish population numbered 282 people.
Verkhnyodniprovs’k was occupied on August 17th 1941. 51 Jews were murdered during the holocaust.
Nowadays there is no Jewish community in Verkhnyodniprovs’k.
Lev Pulver, musician, was born in 1883 in Verkhnyodniprovs’k.
The exact period of the cemetery’s establishment is unknown. The cemetery was founded no later than in the early 20th century. The earliest gravestone found dates to 1911 (of Mordukh Iosifovich Brodsky). There were also some broken fragments with unreadable text found. The cemetery started to fall into ruin in the 1970s. It is partially overbuilt. Since the 1950s-1960s Jews have been buried in the local municipal cemetery, in which there is no separate Jewish sector.
