Contract closed on 29th of September 1743 between Maria Arva Szivi and Jew Mozes Jakab is the oldest document that is witnessing about residence of Jews in Humenné already in 18th century. There were in the city organization like Sandok, Talmud Tora, women charity organization founded in 1890. Jewish families lived in the centre of the city. They were traders, pharmacists and farmers. Two synagogues were built in Humenné. The first one was built in 1795 and the new one in 1930. The new synagogue was destroyed by communists in 1970. There is now on the place of new synagogue building of National bank of Slovakia.
According historical dates Jews has bought from Hungarian state the land where today is the cemetery (Jewish hill) and started to use it since 1828. Cemetery of Humenné belongs to the oldest and largest cemeteries in Slovakia. There are buried many important people of the town. Rabbi Spira Jakab was the first rabbi of the congregation and he was buried on the cemetery in 1873. The last rabbi was Chajim Arje. He was deported in 1942 and he has never come back to Humenné. Further many families were buried here as Stern, Jozefovič, Guttmann and others.
History of the cemetery is very interesting for the tourists that are coming every year to our city but also for family’s members from all over the world especially from Israel, USA, Canada, Australia. This old cemetery has from 500 up to 5000 tombstones in gravesite, dating back to the 19th century.