1669 French Jewish Graveyard Goes Digital
A French historical association plans to turn a graveyard near Strasbourg into France’s first “interactive Jewish cemetery.”
The Com’Est association said visitors would soon be able to scan barcodes next to the Judengarten Jewish cemetery of the town of Mackenheim, allowing them to access a database containing historical facts about each person buried in the cemetery, and about Judengarten in general.
One of oldest Jewish cemeteries of the Alsace region in eastern France, Judengarten has graves dating back to 1669, according to L’Alsace, a local newspaper. The historical association said it already designed the website that would service the visitors.
Professor Gil Huttenmeister, a historian at Universite de Tubingen, has researched and translated around 400 headstones, according to an article about the project which appeared in L’Alsace last week.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
