Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Jews in Prague
Top 10 Jewish
Leaders
1 Eliezer ben Elijah
Ashkenazi (1513-86)
2 Judah Loew ben Bezalel
(1525-1609)
3 Mordecai Maisel
(1528-1601)
4 Mordecai ben Abraham
Jaffe (1535-1612)
5 Ephraim Solomon ben
Aaron of Lunshits
(1550-1619)
6 Joseph Solomon
Delmedigo (1591-1655)
7 David ben Abraham
Oppenheim (1664-1736)
8 Ezekiel ben Judah
Landau (1713-93)
9 Solomon Judah Lieb
Rapoport (1790-1867)
0 Efraim Karol Sidon
(b. 1942)
Prague's Jews have been plagued by anti-Semitic
behaviour almost since their arrival in the 10th
century. Zealous Christians destroyed an early
settlement in what is now Malá Strana. Such
pogroms were not uncommon - the most infamous
is the Passover slaughter of 1389, in which rioters
killed more than 3,000 Jews, including those who
had taken refuge in the Old-New Synagogue. But
there were high points. Prominent Jews - notably
Rabbi Loew and Mordecai Maisel - enjoyed influence
in Rudolf II's court; Charles VI recognized the commu-
nity's autonomy in 1716; his descendant Joseph II
ended many discriminatory measures; and, in the
late 19th century, Jews were active in the National
Revival. But anti-Semitism still lurked. In 1899,
Leopold Hilsner was accused of ritual murder; his
counsel was Tomá
√
Garrigue Masaryk, future presi-
dent of independent Czechoslovakia. Although the
interwar years were a golden age for Czech Jews,
among them Franz Kafka
(see p44)
, the 1938
Munich Agreement gave Hitler possession of Czech
lands, and the Jews' freedom was restricted to a
ghetto, before being deported to concentration
camps. Synagogues were turned into archives for
looted Jewish artifacts. Hitler reportedly even planned
to create a museum of an extinct race in Josefov. By
the end of the war nearly 80,000 Bohemian and
Moravian Jews had died in the Holocaust.
Prague Ghetto
During World War II,
Prague's Jews were
moved to a town called
Terezín, where religious
practices were banned.
Father and son moving their belongings to the “ghetto” of Terezín
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