טעלז

טעלז — בית החיים

Telz — what is left of the bais hachaim

Jewish cemetery, Telšiai, Telšiai County, Lithuania — no street address is published here; confirm the entrance locally

• Read this before you book. The bais hachaim covered about 2.17 hectares; most of it was destroyed in 1987. Roughly 0.43 hectares survives — under a fifth of the original ground — and that fragment was fenced and put on the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage List in 1995.
• Reb Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch's kever is among the stones that survive, and can still be found. Many others cannot: if you are coming for a particular family matzeivah, the odds are against it still standing, and it is worth asking Maceva or the Lithuanian Jewish Community what is documented before you travel.
• The town is a long way from anywhere — roughly two hours by road from Klaipėda and the best part of four from Vilnius. Plan the day around the drive, not around the visit.
• SURVEYED COORDINATES. The map point on this listing is the cemetery itself, measured on the ground by the ESJF survey — not a town centre. Where a kever is inside an ohel it will still need finding once you are through the gate, but the gate is now something you can navigate to.