Navigation Instructions

This website was designed for use on desktop computers rather than mobile devices. The best way to view this site is on devices with a screen width of at least 1000 pixels.

The HOME section contains project credits as well as general photographs found on the website. The next section on the page is ABOUT THE PROJECT, which provides information about the following topics:

The Nature and Purpose of the Computerized Database
Turkish Jewry
The History of the Computerized Database and the Organizations and Individuals Involved in Creating It
What Does the Computerized Database Allow You to Do?

Under CEMETERIES, there is a general introduction to the Jewish cemeteries of Turkey.

This is followed by an introduction to the specific cemeteries presented on the site.

Cemeteries

Introductory Comments on the Cemeteries

Several navigation options are available at this point. One is to survey all cemeteries included on the site (Select Cemetery: All). Alternately, users may navigate BY LETTER by clicking on the first letter of a cemetery’s name, or BY CITY.

If a city is selected, all cemeteries in that city will be displayed at once for browsing.

For a cemetery in a major city, clicking on DESCRIPTION will display a brief history of that cemetery. In the case of a small settlement of which little remains, such as Antakya, a brief history of the local Jewish community is provided. Wherever the symbol appears, clicking on it will display supplementary information, such as a reference or credit.

Clicking on MAP will display a map of Turkey with the selected city indicated. If the map itself is clicked, it will zoom to the site of the selected cemetery in Google Maps. Also included are additional historical and current maps.

Clicking on PHOTOS will start a slideshow of all pictures from the selected cemetery.

Additional resources from locales where Professor Rozen was able to document epigraphic material other than tombstones, such as that on cemetery or synagogue walls or synagogue ornaments, and documentation pertaining to these locales may be found under DOCUMENTS.

Open the Database

Users also may scroll back up and click on OPEN THE DATABASE to view the data from the cemetery.

On the right side of the screen, a table will appear with the following column headers:

Cemetery	Lot No.	Stone No.	Gregorian Date	Hebrew Date

Each of the large cemeteries is divided to lots of 25x25 meters, and in each lot numeration of the stones starts anew.

Clicking button in any monument’s row will open the record for that monument.

Clicking on Select Chart , at the left above the table, will display options for creating graphs based on the information retrieved.

To the left of the table are the various retrieval options:

Query to Database

Cemetery

Cemetery:

City:

Personal Data

Sex:

Age:

Age (num): Enter

Cause of Death:

Text

Inscription: Enter

Stone Number

Lot No.: Enter

Stone No.

from: Enter

to: Enter

Stone Data

Type:

Volume (cc)

from: Enter

to: Enter

Components

from: Enter

to: Enter

Ornament: Enter

Material:

Language:

Condition:

Gregorian Date

From:

To:

Family and Name

Family

from: Enter

to: Enter

Father/Spos.

from: Enter

to: Enter

First Name

from: Enter

to: Enter

For a detailed explanation of the retrieval options, see Minna Rozen’s book Hasköy Cemetery: Typology of Stones (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and University of Pennsylvania Center for Judaic Studies, 1994. Part I)

It should be noted that the COMPONENTS field draws on an index of symbols found among the ornamental elements of monuments, while the ORNAMENTS field uses verbal descriptions of these elements. The COMPONENTS index is intended for examination of the chronological and geographic limits of these elements’ distribution. Unavoidably, cemetery art in two different places will not be identical in every slight detail, and the differences can be considerable, which makes it nearly impossible to produce a universal index for the art in all of the cemeteries, albeit there are a few universal attributes as well. Due to these limitations, the database engine includes an index of symbols only for the Hasköy cemetery (prepared by Professor Minna Rozen) and that of Kuzguncuk (prepared by Tamar Limon, Esq., under the guidance of Professor Rozen). Ornamental elements are retrieved separately for each of the two cemeteries.

The opportunity to prepare an index of symbols for the other cemeteries is open to scholars who wish to author studies on the subject, and any forthcoming indices will be added to this site as they become available. Once a sizeable database of cemeteries has been committed to the digital realm, it will become possible to create a universal search tool for analyzing the symbols of the full gamut of cemeteries.

Above the list of stones appear two additional tools.

First is Select Chart , under which the following options are available:

Age Group
Cause of Death
Stone Type
Number of Deaths
Language
Material
Season
Typology - Ornamental Elements

The graph type setting permits query results to be presented as either a bar graph or a pie graph.

For example, a query specifying Number of Deaths, Male, the period 1566–1708, and Bar Graph will produce the appropriate output for these parameters. At the bottom of the graph , there is an option to print it out.

Phonebook Report , the second tool at the top, includes the following options:

Family, First Name, Date: Outputs relevant records sorted alphabetically by family, first name and then chronologically.
Family, Date, First Name: Outputs relevant records sorted alphabetically by family, chronologically, and then alphabetically by first name.
Date, Family, First Name: Outputs relevant records sorted chronologically.

Separate results can be generated for a given city or cemetery.

All reports are printable.