photography

Chile

Jews were not allowed to enter the territories of Chile until the Declaration of Independence in 1818. Only in 1865, non-Catholics were allowed to practice their religion in private homes and to establish private schools. A series of liberal laws from the years 1883–1884 extended religious tolerance. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jews started to arrive in small numbers, in particular East European Ashkenasim, who tried to settle in Argentina and then moved on to Chile, and Sephardim from Monastir, Macedonia.

Berlin

Bouncing between dark and less dark ages, reaching a golden age,
crashing into the darkest age imaginable and now off to a brighter future again

Jews lived in Berlin and the adjacent Spandau from the beginning of the 13th century, that is immediately after Berlin was founded (the oldest known tombstone is from 1244). They were not confined to a Ghetto, but rights were curtailed. After periodic eviction and readmission, Berlin Jews became victim of pogroms and were evicted in 1573 for one hundred years.

After the devastating thirty-year war, Jews were admitted again in 1671 in order to help rebuilding the country and to be available as a cash-cow for the ruling elite. The restrictive conditions were slowly loosened and full equality was achieved by the mid of the 19th century. Jewish religious, cultural and intellectual life flourished up to the 1920. The years between the end of WWI and 1933 were a golden age.

The rise of National Socialism and Hitler from 1933 onwards lead to pogroms, systematic mass murder and the Shoah. Of more than 160,000 Jews in Berlin, 55,000 were murdered and 7.000 fled into death to escape deportation and murder. Only about 1500 Jews had survived in Berlin, but most emigrated. Yet, a very small community remained.

After the fall of the wall, thousands of immigrants from the former Sowjet Union arrived. Now, Berlin is home to the fastest growing Jewish population outside Israel, mainly due to the recent arrival of young Israelis. The current Jewish population is estimated as about 50,000 and growing.

 

Tombstone art

Jewish carved tombstones are small masterpieces of traditional Jewish art. In particular many gravestones of Eastern Europe are outstanding examples of local artistic creativity.

A Jewish tombstone, called matzevah (מצבה) in Hebrew, is a celebration of a person's life. It also carries lots of historical information  and is often of sculptural artistic value. Ashkenazi tombstones are typically vertical (in contrast to the horizontal Sephardic tombstones), rectangular and have often large inscription fields. Inscriptions were written in Hebrew until the nineteenth century.

Figurative and architectural motifs started to appear in Eastern Europe in the mid-sixteenth century, in particular in Krakow, where the oldest known tombstone dates from about 1549, Prague and other large communities. Artistic motifs spread in the mid-seventeenth century throughout the region whilst the decorations evolved towards local folk art. Often there is a striking resemblance between motives on tombstone and local Eastern European papercuts, for example. Ornamental and symbolic images include architectonic depictions, lions, animals representing names or professions, Cohen hands and Levi pitcher and bowls to name but a few. Motifs and styles were often characteristic for regions and villages. Most tombstones decorated in the Eastern European folk art tradition are filled with decorations up to the brim, reflecting a horror vacui. 

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tombstone art evolved further with, especially in the West, reduced ornamentation, the slow disappearance of traditional Jewish symbolism and the appearance of classical styles such as  obelisks, columns, and large architectural structures.

Further reading at JewishEncyclopedia, Jewish Heritage Europe, Yivo. The blog Vanished World is a wonderful track record of the current status of Eastern European cemeteries.

Elsewhere