HOME PAGE
news
features
calendar
conferences
links

HOME PAGE
archive
directory
resources
photo gallery
about us

JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE

An Online Resource Centre

SLOVENIA


Jews in Slovenia
Jewish Cultural Heritage in Slovenia
Ljubljana Koper Lendava Maribor Murska Sobota
Nova Gorica Piran Ptuj Stanjel
Contacts
Sources

Jews in Slovenia
The Habsburgs ruled most of present-day Slovenia until the Austro-Hungarian Empire was split up following the First World War; the territory then became part of the new state of Yugoslavia, the capital of which was at Belgrade in modern Serbia. Slovenia seceded from the Yugoslav federation in 1991. Relevant material on the history of Yugoslavia can be found in the home page for Serbia.

The country’s present borders encompass territory that historically formed parts of Habsburg-dominated Carniola (central Slovenia), Styria and Carinthia, as well as Hungary and Italy. These different territories had rather different Jewish histories. Slovenia today is a largely landlocked state of about 20,000 square kilometres, with a short coastline on the Adriatic.

Jews were probably present in the region in ancient times, perhaps especially in such Roman towns as Emona (near the site of today's Ljubljana). This presence is confirmed by several small but significant archaeological finds, in particular an oil lamp inscribed with a menorah found in a cave near Skocjan and probably dating from the fifth century. There is no evidence, however, of continuity between this period and the twelfth century, when Jewish settlers are known to have arrived in the region from the north (many seeking refuge from the Crusaders) and from Italy.

By the 12th or 13th centuries there were Jewish communities in many parts of what is now Slovenia. Such towns as Piran, Koper, Izola, Ljubljana, Maribor, Radgona, Slovenj-Gradec, Olmos, Celje, and Ptuj had Jewish quarters during the Middle Ages. Only accounts of those with some extant evidence are given below. In most of these communal and religious life was well organised and the community engaged in trading and moneylending. Documents indicate that Jews in Styria also owned property, including houses, vineyards, fields and mills.

This era of prosperity ended on 18 March 1496, when, pressured by the nobility, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian signed an edict ordering the expulsion of Jews from Styria and Carinthia. The order came into force on 6 January 1497. In 1515, the Jews were also expelled from Ljubljana. Subsequently this core area of modern-day Slovenia remained essential empty of Jewish settlement. It is in areas formerly in other jurisdictions that post-mediaeval Jewish heritage sites are found today.

Jewish Cultural Heritage in Slovenia
Ljubljana
The 17th-century Slovenian historian Janez Vajkard Valvasor wrote that Jews built a synagogue in Ljubljana in 1213, after a fire destroyed the previous building. Modern historians have questioned this, given that the settlement itself had only just been founded and that the records of important towns such as Maribor suggest Jewish settlement only toward the end of the 13th century. Jews in mediaeval Ljubljana were bankers, merchants, artisans, and farmers. The community ran a school and Beth Din (rabbinical court).

After the expulsion of 1515 few Jews have ever settled in the city; although a small number returned in the 19th century the community never reached any appreciable size. A strong anti-Semitic tradition had developed in Ljubljana by the First World War, with calls in the media for the expulsion of those Jews who did live in the city, which had become an important regional centre.

With the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Ljubljana became the unofficial capital of Slovenia in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and in 1929 the official provincial seat of the province of Drava Banovina (comprising most of modern Slovenia) within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In April 1941 it was occupied by Italian forces and in 1942 completely encircled with 32 km of barbed wire. In September 1943 Nazi Germany replaced Italy as the occupying force. During the post-Second World War period the city retained its prominence, becoming the capital of the Yugoslavian province of Slovenia and in 1991 of the independent country of Slovenia. Most Jews in Slovenia today live in Ljubljana.

Former Jewish Quarter
Židovska Ulica (Jewish Street) and Židovska Steza (Jewish Path) – two narrow streets in the city centre – are today part of a fashionable district dominated by Baroque and nineteenth-century buildings. They mark the location of Ljubljana’s mediaeval Jewish quarter. Although many of these structures stand on ancient foundations, no archaeological excavations of the area have taken place, and there are no maps of the city from before the 16th century. Thus very little is known about the quarter’s original appearance.

According to Uros Lubej of Ljubljana’s Institute for the Conservation of the Natural and Cultural Heritage, the mediaeval Jewish quarter had about 30 houses, and these were likely to have been two-storey structures with their top storey constructed of wood. Over time they were consolidated into the present 13 or 14 larger buildings. From this one can estimate that the city’s mediaeval Jewish population peaked at around 300. The entrance to the Jewish quarter was probably on the site of present-day Jurcicev Trg (Jurcicev Square). The enclave was across the street from a bridge that was the first across the Sava River in central Ljubljana. In mediaeval times, the river, to which Židovska Ulica runs parallel, did not have an embankment. The lower level of the houses was thus one storey below their present position.

Synagogue/Jewish Community of Slovenia
The offices of the Jewish community today are in a large office block just outside the city centre. It is here that the first synagogue to have been created in Ljubljana for nearly 500 years was inaugurated, in January 2003. It is located in a converted suite of rooms in the block. The tiny sanctuary has a modern, built-in wooden Ark and features an area of exposed stone symbolising the Western Wall of Jerusalem. One wall is decorated with an inlaid stone sculptural representation of a Star of David. Light, openwork wooden trellises set off a women’s section to one side. A social hall is also attached to the sanctuary. The Jewish community hopes to find a more permanent location for its synagogue in due course.

Address

Tržaška 2
1000 Ljubljana

Former synagogue
From 1515 until the end of the 16th century, there was a Christian chapel on the site of Ljubljana’s former synagogue. The building on the site today, which combines ordinary business and residential uses, dates from after an earthquake of 1895.

Address
4 Židovska Steza

Jewish cemetery
There is a small Jewish section in Ljubljana's municipal cemetery, Zale. It is a rectangular plot set off from the rest of the cemetery by a yew hedge (on three sides) and a wall (on the fourth). Iron gates with Stars of David and signs in Hebrew and Slovenian indicate the Jewish section, the only part of the cemetery to be separated by religion. Elsewhere Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Muslims (and indeed Jews who married into Gentile communities) are buried together.

The Jewish section was established in 1926, but was moved to its present location in 1964 because the authorities wanted to build a monument on the original plot of land. The layout of the present section is the same as that of the original cemetery. There are two dozen or so marked graves. The area’s size and simplicity is a testimony to the small size of the Slovenian Jewish population. Some graves are for more than one person and all are arranged around the section’s perimeter. Their markers are on white gravel bases, surrounding a lawn on which trees grow. Almost all the graves are very simple, with a headstone and a lower curb-like enclosure; only the name of the deceased and the date of their death are stated. One headstone marks the grave of an unidentified Jewish victim of the Second World War.

There is also a small Holocaust monument, erected in 1964. It is a horizontal, rectangular slab with the inscription: ‘Remember the Jews, fallen soldiers and victims of Fascism, 1941-1945.’ It also includes the Menorah shield of Israel, with the word ‘Israel’ in Hebrew – a daring feature in an era during which both public displays of religion and support for the state of Israel were strongly discouraged.

Address



Email
Website
Municipal Cemetery, Zale
Pod Hmeljniki 2
Ljubljana

info@zale.si
zale_cemetery

Koper
Capodistria (Italian name)
Koper lies just south of Trieste and the Italian border. Venice ruled this beautiful port city from 1278 to 1797, and as a result its Jewish history contrasts greatly with that of much of the rest of modern Slovenia. The town has a distinctly Venetian feel, visible in such buildings as the mediaeval governor’s palace, cathedral, and loggia on the main square. By 1918 the town had become part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it then became part of Italy; after the Second World War, it became part of Yugoslavia.

Former Jewish street
Triglavska Ulica
Jews lived in Koper from at least the 1380s, when the first Jewish lending bank was opened in Koper. The former Židovska Ulica (Jewish Street) is a short, narrow, slightly curving road of five houses, running perpendicular to Cevljarska Ulica. The street today is known as Triglavska Ulica; earlier it was called Via Formi, and Židovska Ulica before that. The second house on the right on Cevljarska Ulica from the intersection with Triglavska is believed to be on the site of the synagogue.

Lendava
Lendava is a small town, close to the Hungarian border, and dominated by a hilltop castle. The town’s Jewish monuments are among the most important in Slovenia. Jews from Hungary settled in Lendava around 1773, and by the end of the century they were gathering regularly to pray at the home of innkeeper Bodog Weisz. In 1837, the community rented a house for use as a prayer hall. The facility had 50 seats: 30 for men and 20 for women. In 1843, the community rented and then purchased another building, which became their first real synagogue.

Synagogue
Construction of the community’s first purpose-built synagogue began in 1866. The building, which recently became a cultural centre, still stands in the heart of the town. It is a rectangular, brick structure with a pitched roof. The corners are decorated with slightly raised pilasters.

The synagogue was heavily damaged by the Germans and was sold to the town by the Jewish Federation of Yugoslavia after the Second World War. It was then used as a warehouse. In 1994, a project to turn it into a cultural centre began work on the building, with funding from the municipality. Town officials wanted most of the interior to look like a functioning synagogue and appealed to the few remaining Jews in Lendava to donate to the project whatever ritual objects or other material they had. The rebuilt women’s gallery now houses a permanent exhibition on local Jewish history. Only a few original decorative features survive internally: the six fluted cast-iron columns that support the gallery; the railings of the stairway; and a small niche in the stairwell itself. There was originally a circular window over the Ark but this has been changed into an arched window. Two arched windows on the south side of the building have been lengthened and enlarged, but the third window on the south side has been left unaltered, and there is an arched window over the door in the west façade. The new centre is designed by prominent Hungarian architect Imre Makovecz in a style that incorporates traditional Hungarian motifs. The building now hosts concerts, exhibits, readings, etc.

Address
Spodnja Ulica 5

Former Jewish school
Located near the synagogue, the former Jewish school functioned until the 1920s. It is a fairly nondescript building built in the official style of the day. The building is long and low and consists of only a ground floor and raised attic level. Reconstruction began in the 1990s.

Jewish cemetery
A Chevra Kadisha (Burial Society) was formed in Lendava in 1834. It purchased land for a cemetery near the village of Dolga Vas. The land was enclosed in 1880. Today, the cemetery stands on a main road facing a broad vista of fields, a few hundred metres from the Hungarian border. It is marked off by a chainlink fence. Entry is through an Ohel. This Ohel has a large, arched central door flanked by two arched windows. It is painted pale yellow and has a red tile roof. Inside is a plaque commemorating the Jewish cemetery in Beltinci, which ceased operation around the turn of the century. Some stones from this cemetery may have been moved to Lendava. The plaque also gives the names of prominent members of the local community from the early 20th century.

There are some 176 gravestones visible in the cemetery itself, many of which date back to the second half of the 19th century. Most of the rest are 20th century. Many of the newer stones are made from black marble and are generally in good condition. A number of enamelled photographs of the deceased have been removed from them, however. Relatively few graves have sculptural decoration. Those older stones that are carved from local sandstone are severely eroded. The one unusual carving is on a stone whose epitaph has been totally obliterated; it carries a badly eroded winged head. There are several inscriptions commemorating Auschwitz victims, and in the middle of the cemetery there is a Holocaust memorial to the murdered Jews of the Prekmurje region, erected by four survivors in 1947. It is a simple, rectangular horizontal memorial stone with a sculpted tree on the left side.

Ohel and cemetery alike were restored following an incident in 1989 in which 43 gravestones were damaged. There does not appear to be any threat of recurrence of such an event; the cemetery is well maintained, though a number of stones are suffering from the effects of erosion.

Maribor
The ancient city of Maribor stands on the Drava river, near the Austrian border. It was an important centre of Jewish life in the mediaeval period. ‘David son of Moses’ is mentioned as early as 1103 in Ptuj, 25 kilometres to the south. A Jewish community is first recorded in 1277, and a fourteenth-century gravestone from the city can now be seen at Nova Gorica Jewish cemetery. Noted Rabbi Israel Petahya Isserlein (1390-1460) lived in Maribor for 20 years and held the title ‘Chief Rabbi of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola’.

Jews prospered in Maribor as artisans, bankers, moneylenders and merchants; their commercial interests extended into Italy, Hungary and Moravia. In the 15th century several Catholic families requested conversion to Judaism, something unheard of in most parts of Europe. Jewish prosperity came to an end when Emperor Maximilian I expelled all the Jews of Styria, including Maribor, on 6 January 1497. Most Jews from Maribor then made their way to Venice, though some, such as the Morpurgo family went to Split (Croatia) and to Trieste, where they continued to prosper and in the early 19th century Giuseppe Lazzaro Morpurgo (1762-1835) founded Assecurazioni Generali, the first Austrian life-insurance company. The Morpurgo family is famed for its many accomplished writers, economists and financiers.

Today Maribor is a lively university town and regional centre, retaining a wealth of striking mediaeval and Baroque architecture.

Jewish quarter
Near the southwest corner of the town walls, above the Drava River, lies an area still known as Židovska Ulica (Jewish Street), The surrounding neighbourhood is now a popular area, containing fashionable shops, boutiques, cafés and galleries.

Jewish Tower
Despite its name, the tower’s only relation to Jews is that it was next to the Jewish quarter and was used in the defence of that part of town. Built in 1465 and now a photographic gallery, it is located near the former synagogue across a plaza five 4 metres beneath which, in 2004, a ground-penetrating radar survey revealed the existence of a possible mediaeval Jewish cemetery and mikveh.

Synagogue, Jewish museum and Heritage Centre
The large and prosperous Jewish community of Maribor erected an impressive synagogue in the Middle Ages. It is thought to have been 16.5 metres long and 12.8 metres broad. Its foundations of river stones may date from Roman times but the structure itself post-dates 1190, since it abuts a wall of that date. The original synagogue was rectangular in plan, and on the basement level was divided into two aisles by a pair of square piers. It is not known if this arrangement, common in other mediaeval synagogues of the period (Worms, Regensburg, Prague, Vienna) was repeated on the floors above. An upper storey was entered from the west, and against the east wall, set between two tall lancet windows with a small round window above, was the Ark. The large niche of the Ark itself was found during excavations, as well as numerous fragments of stone carved with Hebrew inscriptions.

The structure was remodelled on several occasions – at least twice before 1450 (once perhaps following an earthquake known to have severely damaged the nearby town walls in 1348). Something of its late gothic appearance can be surmised, however, and it may have resembled the Altneuschul of Prague in overall appearance.

A decree of 1493 banished Jews from some localities ruled by Austria, including Maribor. The synagogue was abandoned and subsequently purchased by a merchant named Druckher, who in 1501 converted it into the Catholic church of All Saints. The resulting structure had an open, hall-like upper room, with vaults whose many ribs apparently sprang from the side walls. The entire building was probably surmounted by a steep wooden roof.

The building functioned as a church until the late 18th century, when many churches and monasteries were closed after Joseph II brought the Catholic Church under Imperial control. In the early 19th century the building was sold and turned into a storehouse by Anton Altman, a local merchant. It was divided into two parts horizontally. In the second half of the 19th century, the building’s gothic arches were pulled down and the top floor was converted into a residential space. Pictures from the 1970s show it with a chimney and what looks like a television aerial. At the beginning of the 1980s the lower floors were used as an art gallery.

The building was closed for several years because its ownership was in dispute. Then, in 1992, the Institute for Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage began its renovation, carrying out detailed research into the building’s structural history and developing a conservation programme for it. Reconstruction took several years, due to scarce funding. Work was completed in 1999 and in 2001 the synagogue opened as a Jewish Heritage Centre, administered by Maribor Regional Museum.

Restoration of the synagogue not only improved its physical appearance, it also led to a rebirth in cultural life in the southeastern part of the old city centre. Today the city of Maribor owns the building, using it for small-scale cultural events such as concerts, exhibitions, meetings, and lectures. Some, but not all, of these events focus on Jewish history and culture.

Address





Websites

Kulturni Center Sinagoga Maribor
(Maribor Synagogue Cultural Centre)
Židovska Ulica 4
2000 Maribor
Slovenia

http://zpn.maribor.si/SINAGOGA.56.0.html
http://users.volja.net/zemljicbo/


Maribor Regional Museum
The museum was established in 1903, although its three main collections existed separately until 1920: the collection of Maribor Diocesan Museum (founded in 1896), the collection of Maribor’s Museum Society (founded in 1902) and the collection of the Historical Society for Slovene Styria (founded in 1903). The museum contains permanent archaeological and ethnological exhibitions. Its extensive lapidary collection occupies most of the courtyard and corridors and contains several monuments, including the mediaeval tombstone, in three main fragments and with much repair work on one side, of Maribor's first rabbi. This man, named Abraham, died in November 1379. The 109-centimetre high tombstone was made from a much older Roman funerary monument, and bears Latin lettering on the back and on one side. The main inscription is in Hebrew.

Address



Telephone
Fax
Email
Websites

Grajska Ulica 2
SI-2000 Maribor
Slovenia

+386 (0) 2 228 3564
+386 (0) 2 252 7777
info@pm-mb.si
www.pmuzej-mb.si
www.culturalprofiles.org.uk/Slovenia/Units/4238.html

Murska Sobota
Located in the region of Prekmurje near the Hungarian border, the town of Murska Sobota was the home of Slovenia’s largest Jewish community between the two world wars. The site was occupied in prehistoric and Roman times, and the mediaeval town was destroyed in the mid 17th century during the Turkish advance on the area. Today, Murska Sobota resembles a provincial Hungarian town; considerable new construction can be seen on the streets.

Former synagogues
The first synagogue in the Prekmurje region was in a private home; its existence was mentioned in 1860. That building was destroyed in 1995. The second synagogue was designed by Lipot [Lipót] Baumhorn (1860-1932), the Budapest-based architect who was modern Europe’s most prolific designer of synagogues. It was built in 1907-8 and demolished in 1954. This synagogue was fairly modest compared to some of the architect’s other designs. It was in the neo-gothic style, with pointed arches for the windows and architectural ribbing as decoration. Inside, slim columns supported a women’s gallery. The bimah (reader’s desk) was located in front of the Ark in the fashion of the Neolog (Hungarian reform) Movement. The Ark itself was set in a decorative canopy surmounted by an arch at the level of the women’s gallery, which spanned the entire east wall. The town’s Protestant community tried to secure the synagogue for use as a church around 1951. Local Jews were amenable to the plan, but no response came from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Belgrade, and the building was demolished. Today, a modern residential block stands on the site.

Jewish cemetery/Holocaust memorial
The cemetery, which was established in the 19th century, was demolished in the late 1980s with the approval of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Belgrade. According to Franc Kuzmic [Kuzmič] of the Regional Museum in the town, some 38 stones were standing at the time and 30 were then auctioned off. The town chose eight of the more elaborate stones to create a simple but dignified memorial to the town’s murdered Jews. The site, a rectangular plot with a housing development on one side that encroaches on some of the cemetery, is a grassy park dotted with trees. In the middle, seven stones are arranged in a semicircle, facing benches. On the street the black marble gravestone of Edmund Furst (d. 1929), president of the Murska Sobota Jewish community, is set under a big weeping willow. On the rear of the stone is an inscription explaining that this is a Jewish cemetery and a memorial park to the victims of Fascism and Nazism.

Address
corner of Malanova and Panonska streets

Regional Museum of Murska Sobota
In 1990, Franc Kuzmič of the Regional Museum organised a small permanent exhibition on the town’s Jewry, which opened in 1997. It includes portions of Torah scrolls from the Baumhorn synagogue, a Hebrew-Hungarian prayer book and a few ritual items. Kuzmič’s book on the history of the Jews of Prekmurje was published in 1993.

Address



Telephone
Fax
Email
Website

Trubarjev drevored 4
9000 Murska Sobota
Slovenia

+386 (0) 2 527 1706
+386 (0) 2 521 1155
Franc.Kuzmic@guest.arnes.si
www.pok-muzej-ms.si/ang/

Nova Gorica
Rozna Dolina (Slovenian name)
The Habsburg-controlled town of Gorizia, north of Trieste, passed into Italian control in 1918. After the Second World War the town’s suburbs became part of Yugoslavia, where they became the centre of a new administrative zone known as Nova Gorica (New Gorizia); it is now part of Slovenia. In 2004 the wall that divided what had become two urban centres, one Italian and one Slovene, was removed. Today the national border that divides the two is virtually invisible. In this process of re-unification, the Jewish monuments of Gorizia have also been re-connected to their historic roots.

There have probably been Jews in Gorizia since the 13th or 14th centuries. Many were bankers and moneylenders. The city came under Austrian rule in 1500, and 34 years later Ferdinand I expelled the town’s Jews. Although the expulsion order was repeatedly renewed, the community was deemed so vital to Gorizia’s economic life that local officials pressured the imperial authorities to lift the ban. In 1624, Ferdinand II granted the rank of Hofjude (Court Jew) to Joseph Pincherle, a native of the town.

A ghetto was established in Gorizia in 1698. An official census in 1764 counted 256 Jews – 127 men and 129 women. Most of these people worked in the flourishing silk industry, in which the community played a key role, or as pawnbrokers, merchants, rag and ironmongers. In 1777 many Jews moved to Gorizia after their expulsion from small towns ruled by Venice. In 1788, the community comprised 270 people – about 4% of the town’s total population. Even at its height, the community numbered fewer than 350.

Few Jews remained in Gorizia on the eve of the Second World War. Those in the town, mainly elderly people, were deported to Auschwitz on 23 November 1943. Most of the Jewish sites of Gorizia, including a synagogue built on the site of an earlier prayer house in 1756 (and renovated in 1894) and the former ghetto on Via Ascoli are located in the Italian section; however, the town’s ancient and extensive Jewish cemetery, in a beautiful location near the border, is in Slovenia.

Jewish cemetery
Gorizia’s historic Jewish cemetery sits in the suburb of Rozna Dolina (Rose Valley; Valdirose in Italian) in Slovenia, just a few hundred yards from the main border crossing. The 5,652 square-metre site, which can be viewed from the nearby overpass, is enclosed by a thick masonry wall. Gentle green wooded hills rise in the background; a small stream separates the cemetery from its former Ohel. The nearby main entrance, located at the base of the cemetery’s triangular site, features an iron gate with a menorah motif. A secondary entrance, reached by a footbridge over the stream, is located near the point of the triangle.

There are approximately 900 gravestones, but many are not in their original location. Some were found outside the walls of the cemetery, which was once larger in size; others were brought there from an earlier cemetery in 1881 and moved inside the present walls during road construction in the 1980s. Italian sources say the cemetery was used until the end of the 19th century by other communities in the vicinity, in particular those from Gradisca.

In 1876 an inventory of the cemetery’s contents found 692 gravestones there. This list was updated over the years and in another tally of 1932, 878 were counted. These lists are kept in the archives of the Jewish community in Trieste (Italy); they contain biographical notes on some of those buried in the cemetery as well as transcriptions and translations of some epitaphs. The cemetery has also been mapped in detail and each of the grave markers photographed.

According to Angelo Vivian, citing the 1876 inventory, the earliest gravestone in the cemetery dates from 1371, but does not represent a local burial. This monument to ‘Regina, daughter of Zerach, wife of Benedetto’ was brought from Maribor to Gorizia in 1831 by Salomon Luzzatto.

Sources cited by Vivian and by Darij Humar from the Institute for the Conservation of the Natural and Cultural Heritage at Nova Gorica break down the legible inscriptions on all local gravestones into four periods:

1st Period: 13th to 15th centuries. A stone found in 1865 in the atrium of a house in Piazza del Duomo, and now at the museum, commemorated one Levi Joshua of Isach, who died in 1406. Another stone dates from 1450 and is probably of a member of the Morpurgo family.

2nd Period: 16th to 17th centuries. One inscription from 1617, honouring a member of the Jona family, came from another gravestone, discovered to have been re-used for building material in a house in the town. Another, of 1652, is believed to be the oldest identified stone from the current cemetery.

3rd Period: 1732 to 1828. Sixteen stones transferred from the old cemetery to the current cemetery in 1881.

4th Period: From 1829 to the present, the period of the greatest expansion of the local Jewish community, approximately 900 stones, with inscriptions in Hebrew and Italian or Italian alone. The most recent burials date from the Second World War. There are also graves memorialising Auschwitz victims.

Most of the gravestones in the cemetery are low (some knee-high or lower) grey markers, often very thick, of local sandstone, with flat rectangular or square faces and rounded tops. In most cases the only decoration is the epitaph and date of death, framed within a border. A very few of the older stones have slightly more elaborate shapes, some with scalloped curves. Erosion is taking its toll and many of the stones are barely legible.

One of the older stones, near the top point of the triangle at the back of the cemetery, features a round ball on a low cylindrical base, which bears the epitaph and vaguely resembles a turban.

Among other gravestones with decorative carving are those of several members of the Morpurgo family, which originated in Maribor. The stones bear the family emblem of Jonah in the mouth of the whale. The Morpurgos were the most important and, at one time, the most numerous Jewish family in Gorizia. In the 1876 gravestone census, some 139 of the 692 graves were of members of the family, followed by 127 Gentillis, 80 Luzzattos, 56 Pincherles, 37 Senigaglias, 34 Bolaffios, 23 Jonas, 17 Richetts, 10 Dorfles, seven Michelstaedters, six Reggios, five Pavias, two Windspachs, and one each from the Schnabl and Schonheit families. Other carved decorations include a few Levite pitchers, while one stone fragment lying on the ground near the main entrance bears a winged head, like an angel, as seen on some Sephardi graves.

Perhaps the most famous person buried in the cemetery is Carlo Michelstaedter, who was born in 1887 and committed suicide in 1910. His posthumously published works are considered important precursors of existentialism. A simple upright stone, like a post with a curved back, bearing his name and the dates of his birth and death, marks his grave. It is next to the grave of his father, Alberto, a businessman who lived from 1850 to 1929. Alberto’s simple matzevah bears a carving of a Levite pitcher and a lengthy epitaph in Italian with a briefer Hebrew text beneath.

The Ohel was originally built in 1928 and was in ruinous condition after the Second World War. The Jewish community of Gorizia, Italy, gave the building to the municipality of Nova Gorica in 1977 in return for guarantees that the municipality would maintain it. The Ohel was reconstructed in the late 1980s. It is a simple structure with a small attached structure to one side and is still owned by the municipality, which rents it out as a café.

Piran
Piran is a small mediaeval port on the Gulf of Trieste at the southern end of Slovenia’s short coastline. Conquered by Venice in the late 13th century, Piran’s architecture owes much to Venetian forms and styles. There is mention of a Jewish community here in 1483; Jewish settlement may have begun a century earlier.

Jewish Square
Zidovski Trg [Židovski Trg]
Jews were not confined to a ghetto in Piran until 1714, but, even before that, they tended to live around what is still called Židovski Trg (Jewish Square), a small space in the heart of the old town. It is entered through two low archways and surrounded by evocative multistorey buildings, similar to those in the ghetto at Venice. The buildings on Židovski Trg are mainly Baroque, but many have mediaeval foundations. Nothing remains of the original mediaeval aspect of the buildings, which today are painted in light pastel colours. The church of St. Stephen forms part of the north side of the square and some historical sources say it stands on the site of the mediaeval synagogue. The area underwent considerable renovation in the 1980s and was renamed Jewish Square Quarter (Kare Židovski Trg). During this renovation, two buildings of probably late 19th-century date were removed from the square so as to create a more open space.

Ptuj
This lovely town stands above the Drava River, just 25 kilometres from Maribor. It is the oldest town in Slovenia, occupying a site that has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Jews are known to have lived in Ptuj from at least 1286, when a house was sold to a Jakob and his wife Gnanna for forty silver marks. Four Christians and four Jews were listed as witnesses to the sale. The town had a Jewish judge in 1333 named Andre Walher. A town statute of 1376 dealt with the rights and position of Jews in the town. In addition to mentioning the Jewish judge, it forbade Jews from running taverns or engaging in trade. The law also regulated moneylending, the principal activity of Ptuj Jews.

Jewish Street
Judengasse
The Ptuj Judengasse is first mentioned in 1344. Christians also lived here at this time. It was last mentioned as a Judengasse in 1429 and was already known as Allerheiligengasse (All Saints Street) in 1441, indicating that most Jews may have left Ptuj by this time. The site of the street is today a rather wide but sharply bending thoroughfare named Jadranska. It leads down towards the river from the main square, where a tall 2nd-century Roman funeral monolith stands in front of a graceful bell tower. The buildings on Jadranska Street are mostly two-storey dwellings with 17th, 18th and 19th -century façades in pastel colours.

Former synagogue
The synagogue was turned into All Saints Church around 1441 or earlier. This church can be seen in a 1766 painting of the town by Franz Josef Fellner, but by 1786 it, too had gone. In 1840, the site became residential.

Address
Jadranska 9

Regional Museum
Dating from 1303, the well-preserved gravestone of Asher David Bar Moshe is displayed in the Ptuj Regional Museum. It is a massive upright rectangular block, sitting on a pedestal-like base with the epitaph framed by a raised border. It is possible that it was reworked from a Roman grave monument. An iron ring is embedded on top of the stone. Also displayed in the museum are fragments of half a dozen other old gravestones with well-defined inscriptions. The Institute for the Conservation of the Natural and Cultural Heritage also houses a fragment of a Jewish gravestone, found in 1994 during rescue excavations in the foundations of a 17th-century Capuchin monastery outside the town (this is now the site of a car park). The stone, about 40cm x 25cm x 15cm, had been used as building material.

Address



Telephone

Fax
Email
Website

Muzejski Trg 1
SI-2250 Ptuj
Slovenia

+386 (0) 2 787 9230
+386 (0) 2 784 0350
+386 (0) 2 787 9245
muzej-ptuj.uprava@siol.net
www.pok-muzej-ptuj.si

Kidricevo
At Kidricevo, a few kilometres from Ptuj, is a First World War military cemetery of which only a few gravestones remain. One of these marks the grave of Isidor Lowy, who died in August 1916. The stone is decorated with a Star of David and Decalogue.

Stanjel
Cemetery
Stanjel is a hilltop village about 30 kilometres to the southeast of Ljubljana. Behind railway tracks in the valley below are the remains of an Austro-Hungarian military cemetery dating from the First World War. It is in bad condition, with much of the site today an apparently empty field, but includes among its five surviving graves the tombs of two Jewish soldiers.

The cemetery was once extremely grand, with a broad central alley leading from imposing gates up to a massive monument in the style of a Greek temple, which bears the Latin inscription, ‘To its finest sons, the Homeland gives thanks’. Row after row of gravestones/crosses originally stood either side of this. It was designed by a military architect, Oberleutnant Joseph Ulrich, and is believed to have been built by Russian prisoners of war. Many of those interred here came from a nearby military hospital to which they were brought along the railway line. All that survives are the massive Art Deco stone pillars of the gates, dated 1915 and 1917; the huge Greek temple; and about five scattered grave markers, including two twisted rusty iron crosses. Among the gravestones are those of Dezso Steiner, apparently from Hungary, and Solomon Gerschow, a Russian, perhaps a prisoner of war. Each is marked with a Star of David.

Contacts
Jewish Community of Slovenia (Judovska skupnost Slovenije)

Address



Telephone
Fax
Email
Website

Tržaška 2
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

+386 (0)1 252 1836
+386 (0)1 252 1836
jss@siol.net
www.jewishcommunity.si

Sources
Note
Jewish heritage in Slovenia is treated in detail in a report of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, first written in 1996, subsequently updated and published in 2006. The report was written by Ruth E Gruber and Samuel D Gruber, editor-in-chief of Jewish Heritage Europe. The information given here relies heavily on this document, with permission from both the authors. A copy is available online at:


contact us: editor@jewish-heritage-europe.eu

Entire website © Jewish Heritage Europe 2004 - 2008     All rights reserved