זשאגער

זשאגער — בתי החיים

Zhager — the Jewish cemeteries

New Žagarė Jewish cemetery, off Raktuvės street, Žagarė, Joniškis district, Lithuania

• TWO TOWNS, TWO KEHILLOS, TWO CEMETERIES. Until the end of the eighteen-hundreds Old Žagarė and New Žagarė were separate places, each with its own kehilla and its own burial ground. They are one town now and the two cemeteries are still two.
• HOW TO FIND THE NEW ŽAGARĖ GROUND, because nobody finds it by address: take Raktuvės street from the chapel at number 46 and go south. Seven hundred metres on, turn right. A hundred metres after that there is a house — the cemetery is behind that house's plot, in the woodland. It is eight hundred metres south of the chapel in a straight line.
• It is the larger of the two: over eight hundred matzevos in pink, grey and black granite and in concrete, from 1845 to 1929, on two-thirds of a hectare. The middle of the ground is clear and walkable; the edges are lost under bushes, long grass and leaf litter.
• The Old Žagarė ground is at the northern end of the town, about a hundred stones, from 1830 to 1934, all inscribed in Hebrew. Between 2018 and 2022 Maceva documented every stone and inscription still there, so what it holds is on record and can be read before travelling.