Description
In the second half of the 19th century, the Old Jewish Cemetery, established on a hillside on the Zarasai Lake peninsula, contained about 1,000 gravestones and fragments thereof with inscriptions carved in Hebrew characters (mostly granite monuments, though there are also a few concrete ones). The location of the cemetery was chosen in accordance with Jewish burial customs, so that it would be situated on a hill or on a hillside, separated from the settlement by a river or lake, and at least 50 cubits (25 meters) from the nearest house, while burials were oriented toward Jerusalem. The old Jewish cemetery in Zarasai was closed in the 1930s. The oldest surviving gravestone here was erected in 1910, while the most recent one dates from 1930.
