Page 683 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Europe

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VISITORS’ CHECKLIST
Practical Information
Pařížská and Červená.
Tel 22 48 00 812.
∑ synagogue.cz
Open 9am–6pm Sun–Fri.
Closed Jewish hols. &
u 9am & 7pm Sat.
Transport
q Staroměstská. v 17, 18.

View across the Old Jewish Cemetery towards the Klausen Synagogue
e Old Jewish Synagogue (1694) stands on
Cemetery the site of a number of small
Jewish schools and prayer
Široká 3 (main entrance). Tel 22 23 17
191, 22 27 49 464. q Staroměstská. houses, known as klausen.
v 17, 18. Open Sun–Fri. & includes Today, it is home to the Jewish
entry to all Jewish sites except Old- Museum, whose exhibits trace
New Synagogue. 7 the history of the Jews in
∑ jewishmuseum.cz Central Europe back to the
Middle Ages. Next to the
Founded in 1478, for over 300 synagogue is the former
years this was the only burial ceremonial hall of the Jewish
ground permitted to Jews. Burial Society, built in 1906.
Because of the lack of space, It now houses a permanent
people had to be buried on exhibition of childrens’
top of each other, up to 12 drawings from the Terezín
layers deep. Today you can see concentration camp.
over 12,000 gravestones, but Also bordering the cemetery,
around 100,000 people are the Pinkas Synagogue was
thought to have been buried founded in 1479, and now
here – the last person, Moses serves as a memorial to all
Beck, in 1787. The most visited the Jewish Czechoslovak
grave in the cemetery is that of citizens who were imprisoned
Rabbi Löw (1520–1609). Visitors at Terezín. Excavations at the
place hundreds of pebbles and synagogue have turned up
wishes on his grave as a mark of fascinating relics of life in the
respect. On the northern edge medieval ghetto, including a
of the cemetery, the Klausen mikva, or ritual bath.
Prague’s Jewish Quarter
In the Middle Ages, Prague’s Jewish
community was confined in an
enclosed ghetto. For centuries, the
Jews suffered from oppressive laws –
in the 16th century, they had to
wear a yellow circle as a mark
of shame. Discrimination was
partially relaxed in 1784 by
Joseph II, and the Jewish Quarter
was named Josefov after him.
In 1850, the area was officially
incorporated as part of Prague.
. Rabbi Löw’s Chair A few years later, the city authorities
A Star of David marks the chair razed the ghetto slums, but many Ten Commandments motif on
of the Chief Rabbi, placed synagogues, the Town Hall, and the the Spanish Synagogue
where the 16th-century scholar, Old Jewish Cemetery were saved.
Rabbi Löw, used to sit.

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