Jewish Burials in Moscow Reported Shunted to General Cemetery

Fresh details on reports that Jews in Moscow were being refused permits to give their departed a traditional Jewish burial were received here today from the Soviet capital. The reports indicated that while Moscow officials had allocated a new site for a cemetery because one of the biggest Moscow cemeteries was full, the new site has no place within it for a Jewish cemetery section.

Earlier reports were confirmed that the large general cemetery on Vostrakovskoe Street, which has within it a consecrated Jewish burial ground, was full, as was the Jewish section. It was also reported that the fact that the Jewish section has no more room for graves was not announced in advance, and there were cases in which burial groups arrived and were told on the spot that there was no more room in the Jewish section.

In some cases, the mourners persuaded officials to permit burial but, in the others, burials had to take place in mixed cemeteries where no special sections exist for consecrated Jewish burials. Both separate and mixed cemeteries have been the custom in Russia since 1917.

It was feared that the ruling in the Vostrakovskoe cemetery situation, giving Jews the alternative of burial in mixed cemeteries or of cremation–which is contrary to Jewish religious law–might be applied in other Russian cities where Jewish cemeteries are becoming filled.