The Jewish Cemetery of Buzău

THE JEWISH CEMETERY OF BUZĂU The Jewish cemetery of Buzău was established in 1853, on the western edge of Poştă neighbourhood. In 1896, mayor Nicu I. Constantinescu asked the Jewish community to move the cemetery, Poștă neighborhood was being populated, and the Regulations of cemeteries stipulated that they should be set up at least 200 meters from the edge of the city. During the interwar period, over 2,500 Jews lived in Buzău. The Israeli cemetery, located at the exit of the city towards the industrial area, was the religious, but also the administrative centre of the Jewish community. The gravestones, with inscriptions in Hebrew and Romanian, are made of black marble and Măgura stone. In fact, some of the biggest merchants of the interwar Buzău rest here. Among them, the great alcohol producer Adler Philipp, Liviu Avram, Chares Mendel, Grumberg, but also Noe Haim Glasman, the president of the Jewish Community and Rabbi Simon Bercovici, spiritual leader of the community from Buzău for 71 years. In 1926, the cemetery was enlarged by purchasing a 5720 square meter plot of land. On the initiative of Noe Haim Glasman, a monument to the fallen Jewish heroes in the First World War was erected here. During the Second World War, it was subject to several acts of vandalism, by the German militaries and legionnaires. Today a small number of people of Buzău form the Jewish community.