Jewish Quarter in Prague, Czech Republic

Jewish Quarter in Josefov, Prague

The 17th century is considered the Golden Age of Jewish Prague. The Jewish community of Prague numbered some 15,000 people (approx. 30 per cent of the entire population), making it the largest Ashkenazic community in the world and the second largest community in Europe after Thessaloniki.In the years 1597 to 1609, the Maharal (Judah Loew ben Bezalel) served as Prague's chief rabbi.

He is considered the greatest of Jewish scholars in Prague's history, his tomb at the Old Jewish Cemetery eventually becoming a pilgrimage site. The expulsion of Jews from Prague by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1745 based on their alleged collaboration with the Prussian army was a severe blow to the flourishing Jewish community. The queen allowed the Jews to return to the city in 1748. In 1848 the gates of the Prague ghetto were opened. The former Jewish quarter, renamed Josefov in 1850, was demolished during the "ghetto clearance" (Czech: Asanace) on the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The first pogrom was in 1096 (the first crusade) and eventually they were concentrated within a walled Ghetto. In 1262 Přemysl Otakar II issued a Statuta Judaeorum which granted the community a degree of self administration. In 1389 one of the worst pogroms saw over 3,000 massacred at Easter. The ghetto was most prosperous towards the end of the 16th century when the Jewish Mayor, Mordecai Maisel, became the Minister of Finance and a very wealthy man. His money helped develop the ghetto. Around this time Rabbi Low created the legendary Golem myth.

In 1850 the quarter was renamed "Josefstadt" (Joseph's City) after Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor who emacipated Jews with the Toleration Edict in 1781. Most of the quarter was demolished between 1893 and 1913 as part of an initiative to model the city on Paris. What was left were only six synagogues, the old cemetery, and the Old Jewish Town Hall (now all part of the Jewish Museum and described below). The Nazi German occupation could have been expected to complete the demolishment of the old ghetto. However the area was preserved in order to provide a site for a planned "exotic museum of an extinct race". This meant that the Nazis gathered Jewish artefacts from all over central Europe for display in Josefov.

Currently Josefov is mixed with amongst the more modern buildings and it is difficult to appreciate exactly what the old quarter was like when it was reputed to have over 180,000 inhabitants.

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