Reflections
Prague; a thousand years of Jewish history
Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, can boast of more than a thousand years of glorious Jewish history. Many great rabbanim and gedolei hador have graced the annals of the pages of Prague’s history and enlightened the Jewish world in their time and forever more.
Motty Meringer 03/05/2009 10:00
The first evidence of a Jewish presence in the city of Prague is to be found in the writings of the traveller Avraham ben Yaakov, more than a thousand years ago. Popular legend tells that Prague’s Jewish settlement commenced with two separate communities; one group of Jews arrived from the west, another from the east, neither knowing of the existence of the other; and each one established a distinct community , one in the west of town, one on the eastern side.
At the end of the eleventh century of the common era, the first crusade took place, with its stated aim being that of freeing the Holy Land from the clutches of the ‘infidel’, the muslim rulers of the time. The crusaders traversed Europe on their journey to the east, attacking and destroying numerous Jewish communities along the way. The Jews of Prague did not escape their murderous attention and many of them were struck down by the christian sword and perished al kiddush HaShem.
In those times, Prague was graced by the presence of gedolei haRishonim, the most prominent of them being Rav Menachem ben Machir and Rav Yitzchak ben Moshe MiVina, the ‘Ohr Zarua’. Since there were as yet no yeshivos in Prague, great numbers of students flocked to the yeshivos in France and Germany to learn Torah from the baalei Tosefos. At the start of the twelfth century ce, many young students from Prague were learning in the yeshiva of Rabbeinu Tam in France, among them Rav Yitzchak bar Mordechai (the Rivam) and Rav Yitzchak bar Yaakov (the Ri haLavan), both of whom are frequently cited in the Tosefos. After leaving the yeshiva of Rabbeinu Tam, these Rishonim returned to Prague to establish yeshivos in their home town, for the benefit of the local population.
In the mid-twelfth century ce fierce fighting took place in Prague, mostly centred around the Prague fortress, and in the course of the battles, the eastern Jewish neighbourhood of the city was burnt to the ground, since it happened to be located nearby. The Jews who lost their homes then left that area entirely and crossed over to the other bank of the Holtava river to seek a new place of residence, outside the city.
In the years that followed, the situation of Prague’s Jews greatly deterioriated. They were only permitted to dwell in a ghetto area which had been especially designated for them, and were forced to wear a special patch on their clothing, singling them out for disgrace. In addition, they were forbidden to work in agriculture, and their main source of income became the money-lending profession. Yet despite all these restrictions, the Jewish population expanded, chiefly because of the special incentives granted to the Jews by the city’s rulers, who desired to have the Jewish subjects improve local trade. During this period, the famous ‘Altneu Shul’ was founded, and all around it the Jewish community settled itself and expanded. At the time of its establishment, the synagogue was given the name ‘Neu Shul’, meaning ‘the new synagogue’, since it was newer than the other synagogues of the city. An older synagogue with the name ‘Alt Shul’ already stood in the Jewish quarter, which at a later period became the Sefardi synagogue. After many years, during which many additional synagogues were established, the name of the ‘Neu Shul’ was changed to ‘Altneu Shul’, signifying that it was both new and old. Another interpretation explains the name as referring to the saying of Chazal, that synagogues of the diaspora only exist upon the condition that when the Beis haMikdash will be rebuilt, all other synagogues will be uprooted. The Altneu Shul is still standing, and is the most ancient synagogue in the whole of Europe.
In the mid-fourteenth century ce Rav Avigdor ben Yitzchak Caro became the av beis din of the Prague community. He was married to the sister of Rav Yehudah Loewy haZaken, who was the grandfather of the Maharal of Prague. Together with him on the Prague beis din served the dayanim Rav Yom Tov Lipman Milhoizen, author of the sefer ‘Hanitzachon’, and Rav Menachem bar Yaakov Shalem. Rav Avigdor established the Prague yeshiva, and his influence together with his two dayanim comrades was felt over all of Europe.
During the tenure of Rav Avigdor, on the eighth day of Pesach in the year 5149, the christians carried out a terrible pogrom in Prague, in the course of which most of the Jewish community was murdered. Rav Avigdor was a composer of poetry and niggunim in addition to his huge expertise in Torah, and he composed the kinah ‘Es kol hatla’ah’ in response to this huge tragedy, a kinah that is still recited in some communities in the Mincha service of Yom Kippur. Rav Avigdor also authored the ‘Sefer haKinah’ and the sefer ‘Kodesh Hilulim’, which dealt with matters of kabbalah, and also a compilation of halachic queries which was preserved for centuries in manuscript form, appearing in print for the first time just two years ago.
Rav Avigdor had ties with the monarchy, and conducted many disputations on matters of religion and faith with the Bohemian king, Vantzel the fourth. Eventually the King admitted the truth of the Jewish faith and the unity of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and one of the results of this his decision to cancel all Jewish debts. Rav Avigdor composed a special song in honour of this event, titled ‘Echad yochid u’meyuchad’, which extols the unity of the Creator; this song was customarily sung before the grooms of Prague.
Rav Avigdor was niftar on the ninth of Iyar in the year 5199 and was the first person to be buried in the ancient Prague cemetery. His headstone remains standing to this day. In the course of the fifteenth century ce many riots broke out in Prague as part of the Hussatian rebellion, which had begun as the result of an attempt to murder Yohann Huss, because of reforms that he had initiated. There are those who speculate that the opinions of Yohann Huss were influenced by those of Rav Avigdor Caro, with whom he had a connection. The Jews gave clandestine support to the revolutionaries, fearing to do so openly lest the uprising fail. The Jewish community was in fact very negatively impacted by the uprising, and many of its members left the city.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century Prague’s christians were given permission to engage in the money-lending business, usually forbidden by their religion, and many Jews therefore left the profession, since it thereby became unprofitable. Many became merchants, and their success aroused the jealousy of the christian merchants, who sought to have the Jews banished from the city. However, all expulsion decrees were deferred, owing to the opposition of the King and the aristocracy of expelling the Jews, since they preferred to benefit from the heavy taxes imposed upon Jewish trade. During this period, the Jews attempted to expand their permitted area of residence beyond its boundaries and into the new city, but their attempts were unsuccessful and they were forced to remain in the Jewish quarter in the old city. Among the Jews in Prague at this time were many gedolei Yisrael, including Rav Pinchas bar Yonasan, Rav Yaakov Falk and Rav Yitzchak Eizik Margolies. Chacham haRav Eliyahu was at the helm of the Prague yeshiva, and he instituted many rabbinic decrees for the benefit of the Jewish residents of Prague and also those from all over Bohemia.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century ce a momentous event took place for the Jews of Prague with the local establishment of the first Hebrew printing press in eastern Europe. The first sefer to be published was a siddur, and many others followed, including the famous ‘Prague Haggadah’.
These few years of tranquillity were not to continue for long; in the mid-sixteenth century ce the Jews of Prague were expelled from the city for three years; some years later, after the decree had been rescinded, they were again expelled for another three year period.
After these expulsions, the golden age of Prague Jewry began which continued until the community was destroyed at the hands of the evil Nazis yimach shemam ve’zichram. The start of this glorious period was marked by the arrival in Prague of Rav Yehudah Loewy ben Betzalel, the Maharal of Prague.
The Maharal began his tenure as Rav of Prague several years after his brother-in-law Rav Yitzchak Chayes had left the city’s rabbanus; immediately after he left Prague, the Maharal began to lead the city’s Jews, although he only officially took office three years later.
Many tales and legends are associated with the Maharal, the most famous of these being linked with his formation of Yossele the Golem, who was created by the Maharal in order to protect Prague’s Jews against the libels charged against them by their christian neighbours. According to legend, the Golem is buried in the attic of the Altneu Shul, under the mounds of genizah stored there. The Maharal led the kehilla of Prague almost until his petira. Towards the end of his life he returned to his place of birth in Posen for a period of five years, at the end of which he returned to once again lead Prague’s Jews.
The Maharal was a fearless leader and did not hesitate to raise the ire of his community if he felt it was necessary. He repeatedly rebuked the wealthy members of the community for their insufficient assistance of its less-fortunate members, and did not desist from this practice even when it led to the causing of hatred against him.
The Maharal authored many seforim dealing with Torah philosophy and Jewish thought, many of which included ideas taken from Kabbalah. The Maharal was already relatively advanced in years when he began to have his seforim published. His first sefer to be brought out was ‘Gur Aryeh’, which is a commentary on Rashi’s commentary on the written Torah. This was published when the Maharal was already sixty-six years of age. Four years later when he was seventy years old, the Maharal’s sefer ‘Gevuros HaShem’ was published. These and other seforim were the result of more than twenty years of toil by the Maharal to bring his seforim into print, seforim that were to become fundamental texts for the understanding of Jewish thought.
In addition to this branch of the Maharal’s writings, the Maharal also had seforim published on halachic matters, on the Tur, the Rif, and on the Mishnah, seder Zeraim. These seforim were all lost in a fire, eighty years after the Maharal’s passing.
Five years before his petira, when he was ninety-two years of age, the Maharal left his position as Rav of Prague, and his place was filled by Rav Shlomo Efraim Luntshitz. The Maharal was niftar at the ripe age of ninety-seven, on the 18th of Ellul in the year 5369. The Jews of Prague erected a headstone over his grave of which part of it reads; “He entered into all areas of Torah in peace and clarity and was knowledgeable in all spheres of wisdom, leaving no area untouched……” Even the non-Jews greatly respected his wisdom; a statue of him is still standing in Prague to this very day, and he is recognised as a great historical figure by the cultural division of the United Nations (UNESCO).
Even after his passing the Maharal’s influence was still keenly felt in Prague. His replacement as Rav, the Maharal’s talmid Rav Shlomo Efraim Luntshitz, led the kehilla in the manner of his mentor, and in his commentary on the written Torah, the ‘Kli Yakar’, the influence of the Maharal’s system of thought can be clearly detected. Apart from the Kli Yakar, many other of the Maharal’s talmidim lived in Prague during this period, including Rav Yom Tov Lipman Heller, author of the commentary ‘Tosefos Yom Tov’ on the Mishnah, and Rav Dovid Genaz, who was expert in matters of astronomy and one of the recognised world authorities on this topic at the time.
Also living in Prague at this time was the Horovitz family, whose most famous member was the Shlah haKodosh, who was born in Prague and served as rav there until his voyage to Eretz Yisrael. A short time later Rav Mordechai Yaffe, the baal ‘HaLevushim’, became a prominent figure in the community, and also Rav Eliezer Ashkenazi, author of the sefer ‘Maasei HaShem’.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century ce the population of Prague experienced a rapid growth spurt, until it numbered some fifteen thousand souls. It was during this period that the community received a special flag and ensign, emblazoned with the emblem of the Jewish kehilla, as a gesture of gratitude for their assistance in the battles against the Swedes in the Thirty-Years War. This flag has been preserved in the Altneu Shul until this very day.
Yet despite this, some time after the culmination of the Thirty-Years War the government began to persecute its Jewish subjects, beginning with a limitation of the venues of employment open to them. Following this, various new taxes were imposed upon the Jews, but the severest decree of all was that forbidding all sons of a family except the eldest to marry.
To add to the tribulations of the community, towards the end of the seventeenth century ce a plague broke out in the city, claiming the lives of three thousand Jews, and several years later a fire consumed three hundred houses in the Jewish Quarter, including eleven synagogues. The government resettled the remaining Jews in a small village adjoining the city, which was later absorbed by the expansion of Prague.
During all these years, the local priests were constantly inciting the masses against the Jews, poisoning the atmosphere into one intensely hostile towards them. This culminated in the accusation and trial of a Prague Jew, by the name of Abeles, who was accused of murdering his own son; the prosecutors claimed that the twelve-year old boy had wished to convert to christianity, prompting the father’s action. This trial led to an outbreak of anti-Jewish riots in the city, in which the soldiers of the Hapsburg army took part, since they were then stationed in Prague as part of their battle against the Prussians.
At the start of the eighteenth century ce Rav Dovid Oppenheim was appointed as rav of the city, and Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz was Rosh Yeshiva. Rav Yechezkel Segal Landau, the Noda b’Yehudah, became rav of Prague after Rav Dovid Oppenheim, and he served the city until his petira on the 17th of Iyar in the year 5553. It was during his tenure as rav that the Jews of Prague were expelled from the city by the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Teresa; they were permitted to return only after a huge tax penalty had been paid and additional restrictions were imposed upon them. During the time of the Noda b’Yehudah the eyes of all European Jews were turned to Prague, since its rav was universally recognised as the final authority in halachic matters, the decisive opinion in any question that arose.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century ce, still during the lifetime of the Noda b’Yehudah, Emperor Josef the Second published his ‘Declaration of Tolerance’ which granted Prague Jewry equal rights together with all other citizens of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This new development undoubtedly greatly improved the material lot of the Jews, but also carried with it a great spiritual danger. Now that the Jews were considered equal subjects of the crown, they were obligated to serve in the Emperor’s army, and also to establish state schools and to learn the language of their host country. These latter demands opened a window of opportunity for the Enlightenment to vastly increase its influence in Prague, and the city’s rabbonim with the Noda b’Yehudah and his talmidim at their head were forced to go out and do battle with these foreign forces, in order to preserve the spiritual state of the kehilla. After the passing of the Noda b’Yehudah and his talmidim, the enlightenment indeed took a stranglehold on the city and many Jews were ensnared, lo aleinu.
In the course of the nineteenth century ce Prague’s Jews began to emerge from the ghetto that had encircled and protected them over the centuries, and many of them migrated to western European countries and the United States. Towards the end of the nineteenth century ce most of the ghetto was destroyed, save for various historical sites such as the synagogues and the cemetery.
During the first quarter of the twentieth century ce, with the establishment of the new country of Czechoslovakia, all of the suburbs surrounding Prague were absorbed into the city itself. The various Jewish communities that were thus swallowed up continued to operate on an individual basis, but also formed a new organisation, the ‘Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities of Greater Prague’, which offered various forms of assistance to the community such as financial help, and also operated the Chevra Kadisha.
With the rise of the accursed Nazis yimach shemam to power, German Jews began to flood into Prague fleeing persecution; the flow of refugees increased after the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to Germany in the following year. On the twenty-fourth of Adar, 5699 Prague was taken over by the Nazis, at which time 56,000 Jews were living there.
Immediately after the takeover, the Nazis established a ‘Central Bureau for the Migration of Jews of Bohemia and Moravia’, headed by Adolf Eichman yimach shemo. This bureau then proceeded to send 46,067 Jews of Prague eastwards, to the death camps of Poland and other countries.
The Nazi's intention for Prague was to build within it a huge museum dedicated to the ‘memory of the lost Jew’, whom they planned to soon have eliminated. To this end they filled fifty-four huge warehouses with artifacts from a hundred and fifty-three Jewish communities that they had destroyed, and employed a staff of Jewish prisoners to organise the museum. Before the war’s end, these Jews were sent to the camps to their deaths. In the Pinkas synagogue in Prague the names of 77,297 Jews are inscribed, those who had been residents in Bohemia and Moravia and were murdered by the Nazis, yimach shemam.
After the end of the Second World War the Jewish community of Prague was reestablished and it expanded until the communist takeover of the country. Two years after the establishment of the State of Israel around six thousand Jews, approximately half of the Jewish population of the city, left Prague for Eretz Israel. After this exodus the communist authorities forbade any further emigration, and the community that was effectively then imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain suffered greatly from anti-Semitic persecution, with many Jews being sent to forced labour and some even executed. In the winter of the year 5713, the notorious ‘Prague Trial’ took place, when the Soviet regime accused fourteen people, eleven of whom were Jews, of being American spies who had engaged in anti-communist activity. Eleven of the fourteen were sentenced to death.
Today the Prague community numbers around three thousand Jews. There are nine synagogues remaining, of which two are functional and the others are used either as museums or storehouses.
At the end of the eleventh century of the common era, the first crusade took place, with its stated aim being that of freeing the Holy Land from the clutches of the ‘infidel’, the muslim rulers of the time. The crusaders traversed Europe on their journey to the east, attacking and destroying numerous Jewish communities along the way. The Jews of Prague did not escape their murderous attention and many of them were struck down by the christian sword and perished al kiddush HaShem.
In those times, Prague was graced by the presence of gedolei haRishonim, the most prominent of them being Rav Menachem ben Machir and Rav Yitzchak ben Moshe MiVina, the ‘Ohr Zarua’. Since there were as yet no yeshivos in Prague, great numbers of students flocked to the yeshivos in France and Germany to learn Torah from the baalei Tosefos. At the start of the twelfth century ce, many young students from Prague were learning in the yeshiva of Rabbeinu Tam in France, among them Rav Yitzchak bar Mordechai (the Rivam) and Rav Yitzchak bar Yaakov (the Ri haLavan), both of whom are frequently cited in the Tosefos. After leaving the yeshiva of Rabbeinu Tam, these Rishonim returned to Prague to establish yeshivos in their home town, for the benefit of the local population.
In the mid-twelfth century ce fierce fighting took place in Prague, mostly centred around the Prague fortress, and in the course of the battles, the eastern Jewish neighbourhood of the city was burnt to the ground, since it happened to be located nearby. The Jews who lost their homes then left that area entirely and crossed over to the other bank of the Holtava river to seek a new place of residence, outside the city.
In the years that followed, the situation of Prague’s Jews greatly deterioriated. They were only permitted to dwell in a ghetto area which had been especially designated for them, and were forced to wear a special patch on their clothing, singling them out for disgrace. In addition, they were forbidden to work in agriculture, and their main source of income became the money-lending profession. Yet despite all these restrictions, the Jewish population expanded, chiefly because of the special incentives granted to the Jews by the city’s rulers, who desired to have the Jewish subjects improve local trade. During this period, the famous ‘Altneu Shul’ was founded, and all around it the Jewish community settled itself and expanded. At the time of its establishment, the synagogue was given the name ‘Neu Shul’, meaning ‘the new synagogue’, since it was newer than the other synagogues of the city. An older synagogue with the name ‘Alt Shul’ already stood in the Jewish quarter, which at a later period became the Sefardi synagogue. After many years, during which many additional synagogues were established, the name of the ‘Neu Shul’ was changed to ‘Altneu Shul’, signifying that it was both new and old. Another interpretation explains the name as referring to the saying of Chazal, that synagogues of the diaspora only exist upon the condition that when the Beis haMikdash will be rebuilt, all other synagogues will be uprooted. The Altneu Shul is still standing, and is the most ancient synagogue in the whole of Europe.
In the mid-fourteenth century ce Rav Avigdor ben Yitzchak Caro became the av beis din of the Prague community. He was married to the sister of Rav Yehudah Loewy haZaken, who was the grandfather of the Maharal of Prague. Together with him on the Prague beis din served the dayanim Rav Yom Tov Lipman Milhoizen, author of the sefer ‘Hanitzachon’, and Rav Menachem bar Yaakov Shalem. Rav Avigdor established the Prague yeshiva, and his influence together with his two dayanim comrades was felt over all of Europe.
During the tenure of Rav Avigdor, on the eighth day of Pesach in the year 5149, the christians carried out a terrible pogrom in Prague, in the course of which most of the Jewish community was murdered. Rav Avigdor was a composer of poetry and niggunim in addition to his huge expertise in Torah, and he composed the kinah ‘Es kol hatla’ah’ in response to this huge tragedy, a kinah that is still recited in some communities in the Mincha service of Yom Kippur. Rav Avigdor also authored the ‘Sefer haKinah’ and the sefer ‘Kodesh Hilulim’, which dealt with matters of kabbalah, and also a compilation of halachic queries which was preserved for centuries in manuscript form, appearing in print for the first time just two years ago.
Rav Avigdor had ties with the monarchy, and conducted many disputations on matters of religion and faith with the Bohemian king, Vantzel the fourth. Eventually the King admitted the truth of the Jewish faith and the unity of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and one of the results of this his decision to cancel all Jewish debts. Rav Avigdor composed a special song in honour of this event, titled ‘Echad yochid u’meyuchad’, which extols the unity of the Creator; this song was customarily sung before the grooms of Prague.
Rav Avigdor was niftar on the ninth of Iyar in the year 5199 and was the first person to be buried in the ancient Prague cemetery. His headstone remains standing to this day. In the course of the fifteenth century ce many riots broke out in Prague as part of the Hussatian rebellion, which had begun as the result of an attempt to murder Yohann Huss, because of reforms that he had initiated. There are those who speculate that the opinions of Yohann Huss were influenced by those of Rav Avigdor Caro, with whom he had a connection. The Jews gave clandestine support to the revolutionaries, fearing to do so openly lest the uprising fail. The Jewish community was in fact very negatively impacted by the uprising, and many of its members left the city.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century Prague’s christians were given permission to engage in the money-lending business, usually forbidden by their religion, and many Jews therefore left the profession, since it thereby became unprofitable. Many became merchants, and their success aroused the jealousy of the christian merchants, who sought to have the Jews banished from the city. However, all expulsion decrees were deferred, owing to the opposition of the King and the aristocracy of expelling the Jews, since they preferred to benefit from the heavy taxes imposed upon Jewish trade. During this period, the Jews attempted to expand their permitted area of residence beyond its boundaries and into the new city, but their attempts were unsuccessful and they were forced to remain in the Jewish quarter in the old city. Among the Jews in Prague at this time were many gedolei Yisrael, including Rav Pinchas bar Yonasan, Rav Yaakov Falk and Rav Yitzchak Eizik Margolies. Chacham haRav Eliyahu was at the helm of the Prague yeshiva, and he instituted many rabbinic decrees for the benefit of the Jewish residents of Prague and also those from all over Bohemia.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century ce a momentous event took place for the Jews of Prague with the local establishment of the first Hebrew printing press in eastern Europe. The first sefer to be published was a siddur, and many others followed, including the famous ‘Prague Haggadah’.
These few years of tranquillity were not to continue for long; in the mid-sixteenth century ce the Jews of Prague were expelled from the city for three years; some years later, after the decree had been rescinded, they were again expelled for another three year period.
After these expulsions, the golden age of Prague Jewry began which continued until the community was destroyed at the hands of the evil Nazis yimach shemam ve’zichram. The start of this glorious period was marked by the arrival in Prague of Rav Yehudah Loewy ben Betzalel, the Maharal of Prague.
The Maharal began his tenure as Rav of Prague several years after his brother-in-law Rav Yitzchak Chayes had left the city’s rabbanus; immediately after he left Prague, the Maharal began to lead the city’s Jews, although he only officially took office three years later.
Many tales and legends are associated with the Maharal, the most famous of these being linked with his formation of Yossele the Golem, who was created by the Maharal in order to protect Prague’s Jews against the libels charged against them by their christian neighbours. According to legend, the Golem is buried in the attic of the Altneu Shul, under the mounds of genizah stored there. The Maharal led the kehilla of Prague almost until his petira. Towards the end of his life he returned to his place of birth in Posen for a period of five years, at the end of which he returned to once again lead Prague’s Jews.
The Maharal was a fearless leader and did not hesitate to raise the ire of his community if he felt it was necessary. He repeatedly rebuked the wealthy members of the community for their insufficient assistance of its less-fortunate members, and did not desist from this practice even when it led to the causing of hatred against him.
The Maharal authored many seforim dealing with Torah philosophy and Jewish thought, many of which included ideas taken from Kabbalah. The Maharal was already relatively advanced in years when he began to have his seforim published. His first sefer to be brought out was ‘Gur Aryeh’, which is a commentary on Rashi’s commentary on the written Torah. This was published when the Maharal was already sixty-six years of age. Four years later when he was seventy years old, the Maharal’s sefer ‘Gevuros HaShem’ was published. These and other seforim were the result of more than twenty years of toil by the Maharal to bring his seforim into print, seforim that were to become fundamental texts for the understanding of Jewish thought.
In addition to this branch of the Maharal’s writings, the Maharal also had seforim published on halachic matters, on the Tur, the Rif, and on the Mishnah, seder Zeraim. These seforim were all lost in a fire, eighty years after the Maharal’s passing.
Five years before his petira, when he was ninety-two years of age, the Maharal left his position as Rav of Prague, and his place was filled by Rav Shlomo Efraim Luntshitz. The Maharal was niftar at the ripe age of ninety-seven, on the 18th of Ellul in the year 5369. The Jews of Prague erected a headstone over his grave of which part of it reads; “He entered into all areas of Torah in peace and clarity and was knowledgeable in all spheres of wisdom, leaving no area untouched……” Even the non-Jews greatly respected his wisdom; a statue of him is still standing in Prague to this very day, and he is recognised as a great historical figure by the cultural division of the United Nations (UNESCO).
Even after his passing the Maharal’s influence was still keenly felt in Prague. His replacement as Rav, the Maharal’s talmid Rav Shlomo Efraim Luntshitz, led the kehilla in the manner of his mentor, and in his commentary on the written Torah, the ‘Kli Yakar’, the influence of the Maharal’s system of thought can be clearly detected. Apart from the Kli Yakar, many other of the Maharal’s talmidim lived in Prague during this period, including Rav Yom Tov Lipman Heller, author of the commentary ‘Tosefos Yom Tov’ on the Mishnah, and Rav Dovid Genaz, who was expert in matters of astronomy and one of the recognised world authorities on this topic at the time.
Also living in Prague at this time was the Horovitz family, whose most famous member was the Shlah haKodosh, who was born in Prague and served as rav there until his voyage to Eretz Yisrael. A short time later Rav Mordechai Yaffe, the baal ‘HaLevushim’, became a prominent figure in the community, and also Rav Eliezer Ashkenazi, author of the sefer ‘Maasei HaShem’.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century ce the population of Prague experienced a rapid growth spurt, until it numbered some fifteen thousand souls. It was during this period that the community received a special flag and ensign, emblazoned with the emblem of the Jewish kehilla, as a gesture of gratitude for their assistance in the battles against the Swedes in the Thirty-Years War. This flag has been preserved in the Altneu Shul until this very day.
Yet despite this, some time after the culmination of the Thirty-Years War the government began to persecute its Jewish subjects, beginning with a limitation of the venues of employment open to them. Following this, various new taxes were imposed upon the Jews, but the severest decree of all was that forbidding all sons of a family except the eldest to marry.
To add to the tribulations of the community, towards the end of the seventeenth century ce a plague broke out in the city, claiming the lives of three thousand Jews, and several years later a fire consumed three hundred houses in the Jewish Quarter, including eleven synagogues. The government resettled the remaining Jews in a small village adjoining the city, which was later absorbed by the expansion of Prague.
During all these years, the local priests were constantly inciting the masses against the Jews, poisoning the atmosphere into one intensely hostile towards them. This culminated in the accusation and trial of a Prague Jew, by the name of Abeles, who was accused of murdering his own son; the prosecutors claimed that the twelve-year old boy had wished to convert to christianity, prompting the father’s action. This trial led to an outbreak of anti-Jewish riots in the city, in which the soldiers of the Hapsburg army took part, since they were then stationed in Prague as part of their battle against the Prussians.
At the start of the eighteenth century ce Rav Dovid Oppenheim was appointed as rav of the city, and Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz was Rosh Yeshiva. Rav Yechezkel Segal Landau, the Noda b’Yehudah, became rav of Prague after Rav Dovid Oppenheim, and he served the city until his petira on the 17th of Iyar in the year 5553. It was during his tenure as rav that the Jews of Prague were expelled from the city by the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Teresa; they were permitted to return only after a huge tax penalty had been paid and additional restrictions were imposed upon them. During the time of the Noda b’Yehudah the eyes of all European Jews were turned to Prague, since its rav was universally recognised as the final authority in halachic matters, the decisive opinion in any question that arose.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century ce, still during the lifetime of the Noda b’Yehudah, Emperor Josef the Second published his ‘Declaration of Tolerance’ which granted Prague Jewry equal rights together with all other citizens of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This new development undoubtedly greatly improved the material lot of the Jews, but also carried with it a great spiritual danger. Now that the Jews were considered equal subjects of the crown, they were obligated to serve in the Emperor’s army, and also to establish state schools and to learn the language of their host country. These latter demands opened a window of opportunity for the Enlightenment to vastly increase its influence in Prague, and the city’s rabbonim with the Noda b’Yehudah and his talmidim at their head were forced to go out and do battle with these foreign forces, in order to preserve the spiritual state of the kehilla. After the passing of the Noda b’Yehudah and his talmidim, the enlightenment indeed took a stranglehold on the city and many Jews were ensnared, lo aleinu.
In the course of the nineteenth century ce Prague’s Jews began to emerge from the ghetto that had encircled and protected them over the centuries, and many of them migrated to western European countries and the United States. Towards the end of the nineteenth century ce most of the ghetto was destroyed, save for various historical sites such as the synagogues and the cemetery.
During the first quarter of the twentieth century ce, with the establishment of the new country of Czechoslovakia, all of the suburbs surrounding Prague were absorbed into the city itself. The various Jewish communities that were thus swallowed up continued to operate on an individual basis, but also formed a new organisation, the ‘Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities of Greater Prague’, which offered various forms of assistance to the community such as financial help, and also operated the Chevra Kadisha.
With the rise of the accursed Nazis yimach shemam to power, German Jews began to flood into Prague fleeing persecution; the flow of refugees increased after the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to Germany in the following year. On the twenty-fourth of Adar, 5699 Prague was taken over by the Nazis, at which time 56,000 Jews were living there.
Immediately after the takeover, the Nazis established a ‘Central Bureau for the Migration of Jews of Bohemia and Moravia’, headed by Adolf Eichman yimach shemo. This bureau then proceeded to send 46,067 Jews of Prague eastwards, to the death camps of Poland and other countries.
The Nazi's intention for Prague was to build within it a huge museum dedicated to the ‘memory of the lost Jew’, whom they planned to soon have eliminated. To this end they filled fifty-four huge warehouses with artifacts from a hundred and fifty-three Jewish communities that they had destroyed, and employed a staff of Jewish prisoners to organise the museum. Before the war’s end, these Jews were sent to the camps to their deaths. In the Pinkas synagogue in Prague the names of 77,297 Jews are inscribed, those who had been residents in Bohemia and Moravia and were murdered by the Nazis, yimach shemam.
After the end of the Second World War the Jewish community of Prague was reestablished and it expanded until the communist takeover of the country. Two years after the establishment of the State of Israel around six thousand Jews, approximately half of the Jewish population of the city, left Prague for Eretz Israel. After this exodus the communist authorities forbade any further emigration, and the community that was effectively then imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain suffered greatly from anti-Semitic persecution, with many Jews being sent to forced labour and some even executed. In the winter of the year 5713, the notorious ‘Prague Trial’ took place, when the Soviet regime accused fourteen people, eleven of whom were Jews, of being American spies who had engaged in anti-communist activity. Eleven of the fourteen were sentenced to death.
Today the Prague community numbers around three thousand Jews. There are nine synagogues remaining, of which two are functional and the others are used either as museums or storehouses.
Harav Yisrael Friedman zy”a, the Rebbe of Husyatin The ancestral chain of Harav Yisrael Friedman, the founder of the Husyatin chassidic court, originates with the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Husyatin chassidus has its roots in Galicia and eventually came to Tel Aviv, during the turbulent years between the two World Wars.
A Royal Calling: The Rishon L’Tzion For many years the Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Israel has borne the title ‘Rishon L’Tzion’; this title was first bestowed on the Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim and over the years it became the standard title for Chief Rabbi of Israel
Yochanan Hyrkenus the First Yochanan Hyrkenus I was the grandson of Matisyahu the Kohen Gadol. He served as prince of Yehuda and as Kohen Gadol from the year 3627 (133BCE), until 3657 (103BCE)