Jewish Cemetery of Jestädt

The village, with an average population of 550 Christians, was barely big enough to support even a minyan.

But, between 1724 and 1800, they managed to buy 27 Ruthen ( rods ) of arable land from the Herren von Boysenburg-Hohenstein to officially establish their own cemetery, which had already been in use for more than 75 years.

They still had to pay them a quit-rent of three florins a year and the Schultheiß [ village mayor ] the protection money but the Jews had a cemetery that can be properly called Jewish.

The oldest of the surviving tombstones dates from 1642 and the last of them marked the grave of Salomon Kugelmann, who died on 11 April 1855 ( 23 Nisan 5615, according to the Jewish calendar ).

Two years later, in 1857, the cemetery was closed when the Jews of Eschwege opened their own cemetery but it opened for one more time on 28 April 1861 ( 18 Iyar 5621, according to the Jewish calendar ) for the burial of the last remaining Jew of Jestädt, a penniless old man who had died childless at the age of 73.