Jüdischer Friedhof, Jewish cemetery in Herford, Germany.

The Jüdischer Friedhof Herford is a protected Jewish burial ground on Friedhofstraße, east of the Old Cemetery. Its neo-Romanesque brick mourning hall, built in 1909 in the same style as the synagogue and community house, has an entrance facade simplified in 1950. The grounds hold gravestones (Mazewot) from the 17th and 18th centuries, re-erected in a gravel bed in 1960.

The Jewish community of Herford was founded in 1647, and the cemetery was laid out soon after at the urging of the noble women's convent. The grounds were last enlarged in 1908; the neo-Romanesque brick mourning hall followed in 1909. In 1942 the gravestones of the 17th and 18th centuries were cleared but preserved, and in 1960 they were re-erected in a different arrangement in a gravel bed at the rear of the cemetery.

The gravestones show inscriptions and decorative carvings that reflect how Jewish families commemorated their dead from the 1600s onward. Walking among them, you see the personal details people chose to remember.

The cemetery is located on Friedhofstraße and has protected status as an architectural monument, so visitors should approach it with respect and quiet. The grounds are easy to walk through and require no special preparation.

In 1942 the large set of 17th- and 18th-century gravestones was cleared away, yet the stones survived; residents housed in the Taharahaus grew vegetables on the emptied ground. In 1960 the stones were re-erected in altered form in a gravel bed at the rear of the cemetery, so their present arrangement is not the original one.