Grigorescu, Felicia: Forme de artă în cimitire evreieşti din nord-vestul Romaniei (Satu Mare, 2013)
Glosar de termeni
II. THE CEMETERY II.A. The Jewish funerary ritual II.A.l. The Cemetery Along with the synagogue, the cemetery is the other important institution1" of the Judaism. Similarly, this has been true for the equivalents church - cemetery in the European Christian world since early middle ages until the beginning of the modern times10 11. Both institutions have become over time ways through which the Jews were able to express their abilities and their option, in different fields of plastic arts, a quite evident fact especially in the second half of the 19th century, after emancipation. When the Jews assume certain forms of artistic expression, we consider that they do it to individualize their community in the contextual social space and background. Apart from an important means to manifest the Judaic identity, the institution of the cemetery has been first of all a religious priority, more acute than the synagogue. The moment they got their dispensation to settle into a place, the Jews would take action to start a cemetery, and through this sanctifying in a way their right and their connection to that particular space. If the cemetery has been throughout the millennia of banishment a primary and permanent space of identifying, the Jews have accomplished this will using their specific plastic expression, especially the artistic stone carving. The great importance of this religious form of manifestation for the Jews, results from several biblical passages, identified and interpreted along the time, in the rabbi literature. Not only the life of the Jew is led by the sacred text, but the one after life12 too. Torah gives clear references regarding the burial, the space used for burial, respectively the development of the Hebrew cemetery, an event which occurred during the Talmudic period13 14, as well as the sign for marking the place for burial for each deceased person, materialized in the Hebrew funeral stone. These tomb stones are the ones which became over time the main carriers of the forms of art, and only at the end of the 19th century, other motifs emerge to develop new forms of artistic expression. In order to name this Jewish institution, in Hebrew, several forms are used: bet kevarot - house of graves, bet olam - house of eternity, bet haim - house of life, according to the various meanings which are attributed to this space by the Jews. Ever since the Middle Ages, the Jewish cemetery has been particularly noticed, the Christians called it Hortus Judaeorum - the garden of the Jews, in Italy Mons Judaicus14 - because the cemetery had to be located on a slope. In the studied area there are several such examples of cemeteries on slopes: at Valea lui Mihai (BH), where a large cemetery has 10 Manuela Paraipan, Simbolistica funerară iudaică, în Studia Hebraica, Issue nr. 8/2008, p.201 11 loan Albu, Influenţe central-europene în iconografia funerară transilvană, în Istorie şi tradiţie în spaţiul românesc VI, Sibiu, 2006, p. 53, (From now on: Influenţe...) 12 M. Radosav, Livada cu rodii, Ed. Argonaut, Cluj Napoca, 2007, (From now on: Livada...), p. 17,... The role of the sacred text in one 's life is so important, that even the period after life cannot be imagined without it.... 13 Federaţia Comunităţilor Evreiaşti din România, Memoria cimitirelor evreieşti, editat cu sprijinul Ministerului Culturii şi Cultelor, Bucureşti, 2007, p. 84, (From now on: FCER , Memoria...) 14 Magyar Zsidó Lexikon, 1929 (From now on: MZsL), p. 890 96
