The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague (Czech: Old Jewish h? Bitov) is located in the Jewish Quarter of Prague (Czech Republic, the Josefov. Was used since the fifteenth century (the oldest grave, that of Avigdor Kara, dates from before , 1439) until 1787. His predecessor was another cemetery called "The Jewish garden" located in the New Town of Prague and recently found through various archaeological excavations. the number of graves of people buried is uncertain, because there are several layers of graves . Anyway, it has been estimated that there are 12,000 graves aproxidamente apparently visible, which lie more than 100,000 Jews. Some of the most famous people buried in the cemetery are Mordecai Maisel (1601), Rabbi Judah Loew (1609), David Gans (1613) and David Oppenheim (1736). history is not clear when exactly the cemetery was founded. This has been discussed many experts. Some of them say the V. century cemetery Others date it instead in the first half of the fifteenth century, as the oldest grave belongs to Rabbi and poet Avigdor Kara (1439) and attribute its foundation to King Otakar II of Bohemia. according to Halacha, Jews must not destroy Jewish graves, and also not allowed to carry a grave elsewhere. This means that when the cemetery ran out of space and get extra land was impossible, more layers of earth were placed on the graves exist, so that the old graves were moved and buried under new layers of soil. This explains why the graves are located so close to each other. Eventually, the cemetery accumulated more than 12 layers of earth.