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The history of the Jewish nation in our country stretches far back into the veils of history and we can find mention of it in several historical sources. Jewish traders and moneychangers began to settle in Prague as far back as the 10th century, when the first ghetto was formed in the area that is today the Lesser Quarter. In turn, the Jewish community experienced hard times and good times, which were contributed to by the church and the changeable favour of the alternating Czech rulers. The community moved to the area of what is today Josefov in the middle of the 12th century, where it received a rigidly defined area that it was not allowed to exceed.

 

For the whole of its existence, the community had its own local government, its own schools and its own synagogues.

The oldest and also the most important of the preserved monuments in the Jewish ghetto is the Old New Synagogue dating back to the last quarter of the 13th century. This beautiful Gothic building was the community’s main synagogue and among other things, is linked to many legends. The most famous of these is the legend of the Golem, which the Maharal of Prague put to sleep in the loft of precisely this synagogue.

 

At the turn of the turn of the 16th century, thanks to the patronage of Emperor Rudolf II who invited many Jewish scholars to Prague, the Jewish community was enriched. This period, regarded as the golden age of the Jewish community, gave rise to many unique buildings, some of which have been preserved to this very day. The leader of the Jewish community was Mordechai Maisel, a man close to the emperor who had several important buildings erected at his own expense. We must mention the Town Hall, the Maisel Synagogue, the Klausen Synagogue and the High Synagogue which have been preserved to this very day. The creation of the Pinkas Synagogue falls into the same era, merit for its construction right next to the Jewish Cemetery and the U Erbů family home going to the Horowitz family.

 

The Old Jewish Cemetery is an important location in the Jewish Quarter, established in the first half of the 15th century and where people were buried right up to 1787. There are currently over 12,000 tombstones here approximately 80,000 graves in several layers one above the other. The most important personality buried here is without a doubt the great religious scholar and teacher Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as Rabbi Loew, buried here in 1609, who is linked to the famous legend of the Golem.

 

After a hard time under Empress Maria Theresa, who expelled the Jews from the whole of the land, the Jewish community gained several rights under the reign of Emperor Josef II, such as being allowed access to education. The Jews gained full emancipation with embedding of their rights in the constitution in 1867. This is also where the history of the Jewish Town in Prague ends, because it was followed by most wealthy families moving outside of its borders, after which the ghetto became a slum in which the city had to demolish most of the buildings due to the bad conditions and spread of diseases at the end of the 19th century.

 

Forced remodelling of the Jewish Town supported the creation of the Jewish Museum in order to gather together important objects of art from the converted synagogues. During World War Two, when the worst chapter of the history of the Jewish population was being written and religious artefacts were being confiscated and synagogues destroyed, Dr. Karel Stein managed to engineer establishment of a central Jewish Museum here. Liturgical items from the abolished synagogues all over the Protectorate where gathered here. Thanks to this a large and unique collection was preserved in Bohemia.