פאלונע

קבר בעל תולדות יעקב יוסף

Polonne — Kever of the Toldos Yaakov Yosef

Old Jewish cemetery, Kirova Street 75, on the crown of a hill by the water, Polonne, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine

• GO TO KIROVA STREET 75. That is the address JewishGen gives for the ground that holds the ohel, on the crown of a hill by the water. The cemetery goes back to the fourteenth century and the last chassidishe burial in it was in 1994.
• He and the Mochiach of Polonne lie together in one stone ohel in the cemetery.
• IT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TOWN AND YOU CAN SEE IT FROM THE ROAD, which is unusual for this region — most of these grounds are out among fields with nothing to mark them. A masonry wall goes all the way round and the gate locks.
• THE KEY IS WITH A NON-JEWISH CARETAKER and there is a small building at the gate. JewishGen names him as Baradey Viktor Arsenievich, at Kirova Street 60 — a few doors along from the cemetery itself. He is paid by what visitors give him rather than by anyone else, so bring something. Members of the kehilla come out to cut back the growth from time to time.
• The wall is low enough to climb, and the survey says so plainly. That is not permission — knock and wait for the caretaker.
• Between one and five hundred matzevos, most still where they were set, under a quarter of them badly damaged. Granite, limestone and sandstone, inscribed in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian; some carry traces of paint, some portraits, some have iron railings round them.
• THERE ARE STILL JEWS IN POLONNE — about a hundred and fifty — and the ground is still theirs and still in use.
• THE MAP POINT IS THE OLD GROUND, AND HERE IS THE REASONING. ESJF surveyed two cemeteries in Polonne, 50.1269, 27.51373 and 50.10921, 27.51505, about two kilometres apart. JewishGen's record of the cemetery holding the ohel dates it to the fourteenth century, which makes it the older of the two, so the old ground's coordinate is what this listing publishes. No single source names both the ohel and the coordinate together — the street address is the better thing to navigate by, and the newer ground at 50.10921, 27.51505 is the one to try if Kirova Street does not lead you to a gate.
• THE MASS GRAVES ARE NOT IN THE CEMETERY. Polonne has two from the war, but they are elsewhere in the town; this ground holds none.