Budapest Régiségei 18. (1958)

ANYAGKÖZLÉSEK - Scheiber Sándor: Zsidó sírkövek Budáról a török hódoltság korából 501-518

8. SCHEIBER JEWISH TOMBSTONES OF BUDA FROM THE PERIOD OF TURKISH RULE The second cemetery of the Jews of Buda, that of the period of Turkish rule, was situated among the Hunfalvy and Batthyány Streets, in the 2nd District of Budapest. In 1686, after the expulsion of the Turks, the cemetery of the depopulated Jewish community was ravaged by the mob, tearing out its tombstones and using them in works of building. It seems that many of them were made use of in the buildings round the Matthias (formerly, Coronation) Church. In the course of the restoration works Jewish tombstones have continuously turned up from the last decades of the 19th century on. A larger number of them have come to light from the buildings bomb-shelled during World War II. Particulars about the former have been collected by me, and the later ones I published a few years ago (Acta Orientalia II. 1952. pp. 123—142). So far the texts of thirty-three tombstones — including those published by myself — have appeared. There are two further stones which I have succeeded in deciphering and proving their medieval origin. One of them is deposited in the lapidary of the Fishers' Bastion, and the other in the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection. Their texts will be published on another occasion. This time we present twenty-seven further tombstones. Eighteen of them turned up earlier, but their texts have so far remained inedited, whereas nine have been discovered after the liberation, since the publication of my article quoted above. They are from the years 1620 to 1683. Consequently, all the Jewish tombstones from the period of Turkish rule that have so far been found, amount to sixty and comprise the period from 1576 to 1683. The inscriptions are of a uniform formula distinctly differing from the medieval one. Thus the period of Turkish rule can be fixed with exactitude even if the parts showing the dates have broken off from the stones. From the inscriptions certain conclusions pertinent to the history of settlements were drawn in our former article also, for we pointed out that, besides Hebrew names, they contain exclusively German names. Therefore, after the Battle of Mohács in 1526, mostly Jews of German, and not of Spanish, origin settled down in Hungary. This has been borne out by the recent material also, which contains two non-Hebrew names, Merli (see Nr. 4) and Gitli (see Nr. 13) and they are German. There is only one among the persons buried whose occupation could be found out : this is..., son of David, who was the cantor of the Jewish community of Buda (see Nr. 15). CAPTIONS Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Tombstone of the woman Rebeca (1620) Fig. Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1622 or Fig. 1623) Fig. Tombstone of Jishmael b. Joseph (1627) Fig. Tombstone of the woman Merli (1627) Fig. Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1631) Fig. Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1640) Fig. Tombstone of the woman Sarah (1656) Fig. Tombstone of the woman Sarah (1668) Fig. Tombstone of the woman Channa (1671) Fig. Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1674 or Fig. 1675) Fig. Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1676 or Fig. 1677) Fig. 12 Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1678) 13 Tombstone of the woman Gitli (1679) 14 Fragment of a Jewish tombstone (1683) 15 Tombstone of David's son, the cantor 16 Tombstone of Simon b. Isaac 17 Tombstone of Simon (?) b. Amram 18 Tombstone of the woman Miriam 19 Tombstone of the woman Nechama 20 Tombstone of Moses (?) b. Chajjim 21 Tombstone of the woman Nechama 22 Fragment of a Jewish tombstone 23 Tombstone of Baruch 24 Tombstone of David 25 Tombstone of Meshullam 518