Zaporizhya New Jewish Cemetery

According to the Commission on the Preservation of Jewish Heritage (KSEN), the cemetery was established in 1903. The surviving matzevah dates to 1930 with an inscription in Russian – Daniil Abramovich Usherovich. The territory of the cemetery began to be built up around the 1960s.

The presence of Jews in Zaporizhya (Ukr. Запоріжжя, Rus. Запорожье, Yid. זאַפּאָראָזשיע, until 1921 Aleksandrovsk, Ukr. Олександрівськ, Rus. Александровск) is first mentioned in 1807. 7 Jews lived in the city in 1816 and the first synagogue was opened in 1844. The Jewish population rose from 286 (9% of the total) population in 1859 to 10,422 (34% of the total population) in 1903. Jews were attacked in pogroms in 1881, 1884, and 1905. In the early 20th century, the community maintained 5 synagogues, a cemetery, a hospital, several schools, and a Talmud-Torah. In the Soviet period, the city had a Yiddish-language elementary school and a Jewish orphanage. There were 22,631 Jews in Zaporizhya in 1939. About 4,000 Jews remained in the city when it was occupied by the Germans in October 1941, most of whom were murdered in March 1942. The Jewish community re-emerged after World War II and the synagogue was reopened in 1947. Zaporizhya had a Jewish population of 15,700 (nearly 4% of the total population) in 1959. The 1990’s saw a revival of Jewish community life. Zaporizhya has several Jewish cultural, religious, and educational organizations, a Jewish school, and a Jewish kindergarten. A new synagogue was inaugurated in 2012. According to the 2001 census, there were 3,444 Jews in Zaporizhya.

According to the 1994–95 survey of the Jewish Preservation Committee (KSEN), the cemetery was founded in 1903. The destruction of the cemetery began in the 1960’s. As of 1994, a few tombstones remained, but the land was, at that time, already being built over.