Prague Blog - Day 4 - The Jewish Quarter

September 3

During WWII Prague experienced very minimal bombing. As a result, so many of Prague's lovely old buildings are still standing. The story is a little different for Prague's Jewish Quarter, but luckily, there are still about 6 synagogues remaining.

Jews first came to Prague in the 10th Century. They were required to live in an undesirable marshy area near the Vltava River. However, in the 12th Century the Church imposed more restrictive rules. Thee Jewish Quarter was walled in and became a ghetto. In the 16th and 17th Centuries Prague had one of the largest ghettos in Europe, and Jews made up 25% of the city's population. Despite institutionalized harassment and bigotry, the Jewish community managed to survive difficult conditions, including periodic pogroms.

In 1781, Emperor Josef II eased much of the discrimination against Jews. In 1848 the walls of the Jewish Quarter were torn down and the area was renamed Josefov, in honor of the Emperor. In 1897 much of Josefov was torn down to eliminated the crowded rundown Jewish neighborhood. Medieval buildings were replaced with Art Nouveau buildings. The synagogues escaped the urban renewal efforts. By the 1930's Prague had a prosperous Jewish community.

But WWII changed everything. Of 120,000 Jews living in Prague, only 10,000 survived the Holocaust. The Communist era which followed continued the anti-Semitism. Despite this devastation, Prague's Jewish Quarter remains one of the best-preserved Jewish districts in all of Europe. (Thanks to Rick Steves for much of this history.)

Eva was our guide again. Although she is not Jewish, her knowledge of the Jewish Quarter and Jewish history and customs is quite impressive.

We started our tour with the Maisel Synagogue. It was built in the late 16th Century in the Neo-Gothic style by the Maisel family, financiers of the Hapsburg rulers. It now serves as a museum of Czech Jewish history.

Inside the star of David is a pointed hat. The Jews were required to wear yellow hats like this in the Middle Ages.

The museum included something about the Golem of Prague. Around 1600, Rabbi Loew of Prague created a creature out of clay. He brought it to life by putting a special stone in its forehead. Its purpose was to protect the Jews in the ghetto. He removed the stone on the Sabbath to allow the Golem a day of rest. One day he forgot to remove it and the Golem went on a rampage. Afterwards, he removed it permanently. The Golem has been hidden in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue ever since.

The Pinkas Synagogue dates from 1535. It now serves as a Holocaust memorial. Inscribed on the walls are the names of 155,000 Czech Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The inscriptions include family name, first name, birth date, and date of death or deportation, grouped by home town. The list includes the grandparents of Madeleine Albright. It was very somber and moving.

Upstairs are drawings made by children imprisoned at Terezin. Of the 8,000 children sent to Terezin, only 24 survived. It was even harder to look at these than at the names. I was annoyed when a group of German teenagers entered and some of them were laughing and rough-housing and ignoring the exhibit. According to Eva, German students are required to visit a former concentration camp, so a lot of high school groups come to Prague and Terezin because it is close. I'm glad they make them come, but I wish they would take it seriously. Most of them were behaving well, but it still had a spring break atmosphere, with their special t-shirts and minimal supervision. Eva said she used to guide at Terezin but she had to stop as it became too upsetting for her.

Next we visited the Old Jewish Cemetery. It was the only burial place allowed to Jews for hundreds of year. As it filled up, graves were piled on top of other graves. Today around 12,000 tombstones remain, but it is believed that there are over 85,000 graves here. 

Nearby we saw a former mortuary which now contained a chevra kedusha exhibit. We did not have time to go in.

The Klausen Synagogue is a Baroque structure which now contains displays of Jewish ritual objects.

After that we visited the Old-New Synagogue. It was built in 1270 and was the most important synagogue in Prague. This Gothic building is still an active synagogue, even though the Jewish population of Prague is now very small. The vaulted ceilings are unique because the vaults contain five ribs  rather than four, in order to avoid looking like a cross. The women's gallery must have been an afterthought. It is not upstairs, but in wings on the side. There were very narrow slits in the walls for the women to look through. The walls were so thick that the women's area seemed like a bunker.

Our final visit was to the Spanish Synagogue. In front was a statue of Franz Kafka, one of Prague's most famous Jews.

This Spanish Synagogue was built in the late 1800's but there has been a synagogue on this site since about 1150. At the time this was built, the Jews had been given full rights by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and had achieved prosperity. This was not a Sephardic congrgation. It was called the Spanish Synagogue because of its Moorish style. It was, however, a Reform Jewish congregation. This synagogue is now one of the many venues around Prague where classical concerts and opera can be heard in the evening.