Old Jewish Cemetery, Split

On the eastern edge of the Marjan is the Old Jewish Cemetery founded in 1573. The cemetery has just over 700 graves. The last burial was in 1945. Then the cemetery was closed to further burials and it was declared to be a national monument.

The land for the cemetery was bought by Daniel Rodrigo in 1573. Daniel was a refugee from the Inquisition in Portugal. An skilled negotiator, he secured a trading deal between Split and the Venetian Republic. It involved the transshipment of goods from the east through Split to Venice. It proved to be a benefit to Split and the Jewish community.

The oldest graves have a flat slab on top or a sarcophagus roof. The older stones are engraved with Hebrew inscriptions. The more recent grave markers are similar to non-Jewish Croatian graves.

Today, the 100 or so members of the Jewish community in Split have a designated Jewish section at the Public Cemetery of Lovrinac, where a Holocaust memorial can be found.