In July 2025, the Pomurje Museum Murska Sobota, under the direction of curator Samo Sankovič, carried out a small-scale rescue archaeological investigation in Murska Sobota prior to the construction of an extension to the Evangelical Centre. The research was commissioned by the Evangelical Humanitarian Organisation Podpornica. Among the finds, which mostly belonged to modern layers dating to the period after the Second World War, a partially preserved Jewish tombstone was discovered.
The event “His Path” (דרכו): Reading a Jewish Epitaph from Murska Sobota will present the reconstruction and interpretation of this partially preserved Hebrew epitaph. Through linguistic and palaeographic analysis, the damaged inscription makes it possible to identify key elements of the deceased person’s life, his role within the Jewish community, and the religious and cultural context in which the inscription was created.
The epitaph is written in the characteristic language of Central European Jewish funerary inscriptions, combining biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, Aramaic elements, and established epigraphic formulae. Its linguistic and palaeographic features suggest that the tombstone can be dated to the middle or second half of the 18th century.
Although the name of the deceased has not been preserved, the inscription indicates that he was a respected member of the Jewish community, possibly its leader, teacher, or parnas, remembered for his wisdom, piety, noble character, and educational role. The epitaph therefore provides an important insight into Jewish life and memory in Murska Sobota.
The lecture by Dr Samo Skralovnik and Samo Sankovič will be followed by the presentation of the tombstone in the permanent exhibition of the Pomurje Museum Murska Sobota. On this occasion, the tombstone will be newly included in the permanent exhibition and placed within the wider context of the Jewish heritage of Murska Sobota and the Pomurje region.