The Jewish Cemeteries of Cluj: What Is Known and What Is Not

The Jewish cemeteries of Cluj are among the least documented places in the city. We know where they are, and one of them is still used for burials, but no published, authoritative survey describes their age, how they were divided between the communities, or the gravestones in them. This article sets out what can be verified and states plainly what is not yet known.

A Young Community, Late Burials

Unlike the old towns of Moldavia, Jewish settlement in Cluj came late. The 1780 census recorded eight Jewish families in the city, according to the community database of ANU – Museum of the Jewish People. In 1848 there were 58 families, and according to the Leo Baeck Institute’s Jewish Bukovina and Transylvania archive they were still denied the right to a synagogue, a school and a cemetery of their own. Only in 1849 were Transylvania’s Jews allowed to settle in towns and acquire property, and the city’s first synagogue was founded in 1851.

Yet the ANU database states that a Chevra Kadisha (burial society) was founded in Cluj as early as 1837. We found no source explaining where the community buried its dead before a cemetery opened in the city itself, and we did not find the founding year of any of the existing cemeteries.

Orthodox and Neolog

After the General Jewish Congress of Hungary in 1868–1869 the community split: an Orthodox congregation was formed, and in 1881 a “Status Quo” congregation that became Neolog in 1884. A Hasidic congregation followed in 1921. In Transylvanian towns each stream usually had its own institutions, including a burial society and a cemetery. That was probably also the case in Cluj, but we found no source that explicitly assigns any of the existing cemeteries to a particular congregation.

What Is Known About the Sites

JewishGen’s International Jewish Cemetery Project has four Jewish cemetery records for Cluj-Napoca: two at Calea Turzii 154, one at Calea Turzii 116 and one at Strada Șoimului 1. All are marked as guarded. The Calea Turzii 116 entry counts more than 3,000 gravestones and the Strada Șoimului entry about 500, although not every column of the table is clear. The JGuide Europe guide lists two sites, the “Jewish cemetery of Turzii street” and the “Jewish cemetery of Soimului street”, without further details.

A wider picture comes from the 2010 survey by the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. It counted 47 Jewish cemeteries in Cluj County, only two of which have between 500 and 5,000 gravestones; at 34 of them the oldest stone dates from the 19th century. The survey does not detail the sites in the city itself.

A Working Cemetery

The cemetery on Strada Șoimului is still used for burials. In March 2023 Robert Schwartz, president of the Jewish Community of Cluj from 2010 until his death, was buried there. Schwartz was born in the city on 3 September 1944 and survived the Holocaust as an infant, hidden by his mother in the cellar of the family house. During his term the “Memorial Temple of the Deported” synagogue was renovated, a new Jewish cultural centre opened and, according to the local press, the “Holocaust Martyrs Memorial” was completed. The source does not say where this memorial stands.

Remembering the Holocaust

Almost 16,000 Jews of Cluj and its district were sent to Auschwitz in six trains in May–June 1944, and they have no graves. We found no authoritative record of a memorial or symbolic grave for them in any of the city’s cemeteries. The city’s remembrance centres on the synagogue at Strada Horea 21 and the Holocaust monument in Caragiale Park, described in our article on Cluj in 1944. Readers who know of memorial stones in the cemeteries are welcome to write to us.

Visiting

We found no published opening hours for any of the cemeteries. Arrange a visit in advance, especially if you are looking for a family grave, with the Jewish Community of Cluj or the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER). As is customary at Jewish cemeteries, there are no visits on Shabbat or festivals. Family researchers can also use the Chevra Kadisha membership lists in the Cluj memorial book, translated on JewishGen.