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The book Sefer Beit HaChaim was published in 1931 in Piotrkow, Poland, by Moshe Menachem Mendel Walden, a prominent rabbi and author of several books.  What makes this book so unique is that it is virtually unknown — there are only three known copies: one in Europe, one in the United States, and one in Israel.

JewishGen has purchased the one copy in the US (which was in the hands of a private collector), and donated it to the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library, where it can be properly cared for.  JewishGen retained a photocopy of the book, so that it can be translated and indexed, with its contents to be placed on the JewishGen website.

The book includes the full tombstone inscriptions of 1,422 men buried in the cemetery of Kielce, Poland, dating from the mid-1870s until the late 1920s.  Most of these tombstones no longer exist, as the cemetery in Kielce was mostly destroyed during WWII.

The inscriptions in this book could be of immense value to all genealogical researchers interested in the Kielce area.  Note that the majority of those buried in the cemetery in Kielce during this era were not born in Kielce, as Jewish residency in Kielce was permitted only starting in 1863.

The book is 524 pages long, and is approximately 6" x 4.5" and 3/4" thick (it is printed on very thin paper).  The book is printed on fairly acidic paper and must be handled with extreme care.

Pages 25-85 are a listing of all 1,422 names of those buried, in Hebrew alphabetical order by first name.  Following that, from page 86 to page 458, are the complete transcriptions of each tombstone.  These are also in the same sequence — alphabetical order by first name.  The last pages of the book (pp. 459-524) are some interesting letters from some important rabbis, which perhaps don't need to be fully translated, but perhaps their images could be included on the web.

Here are two sample page images from the book.  Click on each for a larger view.

JewishGen's plans are to translate this book, into spreadsheet form.  The spreadsheet will contain only the basic genealogical information, not the entire tombstone inscription — as many of them can be quite lengthy and flowerly. The data would be initially presented as a static list, and eventually be placed in JewishGen's JOWBR (Online Worldwide Burial Registry), with hyperlinks to the scanned images, which would contain the full Hebrew inscription.

The spreadsheet would have the following columns:

• Given Name(s).
• Father's Given Name(s).
• Surname — present in only about half of the inscriptions.
• Date of Death (Hebrew date).
• Age (if given, which is fairly rare).
• Notes: Other genealogically relevant material which may be present in the tombstone inscription: HaKohen/HaLevi status, Rabbi, young/old, married/single, place of origin, descendants, ancestors, occupation, etc.

Note that index pages at the front of the book sometimes have information that the inscriptions do not have and vice versa (and sometime even conflicting information!).  These discrepancies should be noted in the "Notes" column.

The Hebrew given names will be transliterated in "standard" Ashkenazi format, e.g. Yehoshua, Moshe, Avrohom, Elchonon, Yitzchok, etc., and the surnames should be transliterated into Polish phonetics.  I can provide a list of Jewish surnames from Kielce, to be used as a guide.

To make these translations available, please contribute to this project — visit the JewishGen-erosity site, to make a donation.

Warren Blatt, March, 2002.