Tombstone Tuesday: Feiga bat Moshe, Labun Jewish cemetery

In June of 2013 I had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine and Labun (now Yurovshchina; once called Lubin in Yiddish), my paternal grandparents' community. We were able to visit the old Jewish cemetery, which I discussed in an earlier post. Over the past several Tuesdays I have posted photos and translations of tombstones from that cemetery. Most do not feature surnames.

 Died 19 [month not legible] 56[16?]

Here lies

Woman [unknown word] Feiga

daughter of Moshe

May her soul be bound in eternal life. 1855 

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Reading and translating this  stone was particularly difficult. Issues with reading the stone are highlighted in red text.

נפ representing "died" on the first curved line is clear, as in the date, יט, which indicates 19. After that, however, the next words are unclear. 

פנ, "here lies," is written in large letters in the center of the stone. The next line below that seems to start with the word Eisha (אשה), which means "woman." Unfortunately the next word, likely an adjective describing this woman, is unclear. Her name is quite clear at the end of the line: Feiga.

The next line starts with bat (בﬨ), "daughter of," and is followed by the name Moshe (משה).

The last line includes the standard abbreviation of the phrase "may her soul be bound in eternal life" (ﬨנצכה). Interestingly, this is followed by a year written in Latin characters. 

Among those who looked at this on the "Tracing the Tribe" FaceBook page, there was disagreement about whether the number was 1955 or 1855. Both years would be unusual considering that the tombstones I have recorded in this cemetery seem to date from the 1910s through the early 1930s. The inscription at the end of the top curved line may serve to address the issue, however. 

1955 in the Hebrew calendar year is 5716 (ﬨשטז).  

1855 in the Hebrew calendar year is 5616 (ﬨﬧטז).

ﬨﬧ is near the end of the top curved line. Two characters that should represent the last two characters in the year are missing in an eroded area of the stone. 

If this is accurate, then we are looking at the earliest stone located thus far in the Labun Jewish cemetery.

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Special thanks to Israel Pickholtz, Mark Jacobson, Lara Diamond, and Robin Meltzer (all posting on Tracing the Tribe FaceBook page) for their help deciphering this stone.