Josefov: Eight Centuries of Jewish Prague

Zaplanuj wizytę Heritage Journeys

The first mentions of Jews in Prague come from the tenth century — Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub, an Andalusian traveller, described in 965 Jewish merchants trading at the Prague market. By the twelfth century, Jewish settlement had concentrated on the right bank of the Vltava, beside the Old Town. The first synagogue (the Old School, no longer extant) was built before 1142. The Old-New Synagogue, built around 1270 in the Gothic style, remains the oldest surviving and still-active synagogue in Europe — the heart of Jewish Prague for more than seven centuries.

The golden age of Jewish Prague fell across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under Habsburg rule. Rabbi Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal, 1525-1609) — kabbalist, philosopher and, by legend, creator of the Golem — led the Prague yeshiva and left a library of theological works still studied today. His contemporaries were Rabbi Mordecai Yoffe (author of the Levush Malchut), David Gans (chronicler of the Tzemach David) and the astronomer Joseph Solomon Delmedigo. Mordechai Maisel (1528-1601), Prague’s Jewish Primate and banker to Emperor Rudolf II, funded the construction of the Maisel (1592), High (1568) and Klausen (1573-1604) Synagogues. Under his patronage the quarter took on the shape recognisable today.

Emperor Joseph II’s reforms of 1781 (the Patent of Toleration) lifted most restrictions on Jews in the Habsburg monarchy. In his honour, the Prague quarter was renamed in 1850 from Judenstadt to Josefstadt (Josefov). The second half of the nineteenth century brought emancipation — Prague’s Jews began to move into wealthier districts (Vinohrady, Karlín) and the old Josefov was left to poorer families. Between 1893 and 1913 the city carried out a drastic redevelopment — the asanace — demolishing most of the medieval fabric and laying out new streets in the Parisian style (Pařížská, Maiselova). Six synagogues, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the Jewish Town Hall were deliberately preserved — already recognised at the time as monuments of world culture.

Under German rule after 1939, in a strange gesture, Adolf Eichmann approved a plan to establish in Prague a "Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race" — gathering Judaica, archives and ritual objects looted from the liquidated communities of Bohemia and Moravia. As a result, Prague’s Jewish collections survived the war — against the intentions of their assemblers — and today form the largest collection of Judaica in Europe. The Jews of Prague themselves were mostly deported via Terezín (Theresienstadt) to Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka. Of Prague’s 56,000 Jews before 1939, around 7,600 survived the war.

After the war and forty-one years of communist rule, during which the Prague Jewish Religious Community operated under strict state control, the transformation of 1989 brought renewal. Today the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic has around 3,000 registered members, with 1,500 in Prague. The Jewish Museum in Prague (first founded in 1906) is today the third most-visited museum in the country. All six surviving synagogues of Josefov are active — five as branches of the Museum (Maisel, Pinkas, Klausen, Spanish, High), and the Old-New Synagogue as the only active Orthodox house of prayer. A second active synagogue in Prague — the Jerusalem (Jubilee) Synagogue on Jerusalémská Street, built in 1906 in an Art Nouveau-Moorish style — remains the community’s second prayer house.

A full visit to Josefov takes four hours on foot. The whole quarter lies within six streets — Maiselova, Pařížská, Široká, Vězeňská, U Starého hřbitova, Červená — with pedestrian distances between the farthest points no longer than eight minutes. The combined ticket to all Museum sites (four synagogues plus the Old Cemetery plus the Jewish Town Hall) — 500 CZK (around £18), the Old-New Synagogue a separate ticket (200 CZK).

We recommend starting at the Old-New Synagogue on Maiselova (opens 9:00). Half an hour to take in the main prayer hall with its Gothic vault on five ribs, the bimah of 1483 and the women’s court. Here, by legend, lies the body of the Golem fashioned by Rabbi Loew in the attic — closed to visitors.

Across the street stands the High Synagogue (Vysoká synagoga) of 1568, beside the Jewish Town Hall (Židovská radnice) with its famous Hebrew clock whose hands move anticlockwise. Two minutes on foot — the Maisel Synagogue on Maiselova 10, funded by Mordechai Maisel in 1592 and now home to the permanent exhibition "The History of the Jews in the Bohemian Lands from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Centuries".

The Old Jewish Cemetery (Starý židovský hřbitov) — entrance from Široká Street. Established in 1439 and used until 1787 (when it was closed by Joseph II’s reforms), it covers only one hectare yet holds more than 12,000 matzevot arranged across twelve layers of burials (Prague’s Jews could not extend the cemetery and so buried each generation higher than the last on the same ground). The most famous graves: Rabbi Yehudah Loew (Maharal, died 1609), Mordechai Maisel (1601), David Gans (1613), Avigdor Karo (the oldest surviving monument, 1439).

Onward — the Pinkas Synagogue on Široká 3, built in 1535 and now a memorial to the 77,297 Czech and Moravian Jews murdered in the Holocaust (their names inscribed by hand on the walls of the main hall). The Klausen Synagogue on U Starého hřbitova 1, the largest in Prague (1604), today an exhibition on Jewish traditions. The route ends at the Spanish Synagogue (Španělská synagoga) on Vězeňská 1 — built in 1868 in the Moorish style, with walls and vaults entirely covered in gilded arabesque ornament. The exhibition: the history of the Jews in the Bohemian lands from the nineteenth century to the present.

For meals afterwards, Pařížská and Maiselova offer Jewish cuisine (King Solomon Restaurant — kosher under supervision of the Federation, Dinitz on Bílkova 12, Shelanu on Břehová) and Israeli cuisine.

Contemporary Jewish life in Prague centres on the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic (Federace židovských obcí v ČR), headquartered at Maiselova 18. The Prague community has 1,500 members, with two active synagogues: the Old-New (Orthodox) and the Jerusalem (modernist). Daily services, Hebrew classes, the Lauder Gan Israel school, and kosher kitchens at King Solomon Restaurant and Dinitz.

The Jewish Museum in Prague (Židovské muzeum v Praze), founded in 1906 and rebuilt in its present form after 1994, is the largest Jewish museum in Central Europe. Five of the six surviving synagogues of Josefov (Maisel, Pinkas, Klausen, Spanish, High), together with the Old Jewish Cemetery and the Jewish Town Hall, form its branches. The collections hold more than 40,000 objects — most from the wartime "Museum of the Extinct Race" assembly, recovered and expanded after the war.

A visit to Josefov calls for booking tickets online at least two days in advance — the spring and summer seasons bring queues of several thousand for those without reservations. The Museum combined ticket is valid for a week; the Old-New Synagogue is ticketed separately. Opening hours: April-October 9:00-18:00, November-March 9:00-16:30. All sites are closed on Saturdays (Shabbat) and on Jewish holidays.

Etiquette in the synagogues: men with a kippah (available at the entrance, donations welcome). Women in modest dress. The Old-New Synagogue — observance here is strict, and worshippers may ask visitors to keep silence during services. Photography is forbidden inside the Old-New Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery. In other Museum branches — no flash, no tripod.

Kosher kitchens under supervision of the Federation: King Solomon Restaurant on Široká 8 (Monday to Thursday 12:00-22:30, Friday until 16:00, Saturday evening after Shabbat, Sunday 12:00-22:30, directly beside the Pinkas Synagogue), Dinitz on Bílkova 12 (Israeli kosher cuisine).

Mercedes V-Class from Václav Havel Airport (PRG) to a hotel in central Prague — 25 minutes, 18 kilometres. From an Old Town hotel to Josefov — five to ten minutes on foot (the whole quarter lies 200-400 metres from Old Town Square). The V-Class does not enter Josefov itself (pedestrian zone) — the driver pulls up on Pařížská (the quarter’s northern edge) or on Kaprova (the southern edge), a five-minute walk from the Old-New Synagogue.

V-Class parking: the underground car park beneath Pařížská (Hotel Inter-Continental Praha), Garáže Centrum Praha-Letenská, and Garáže Slovanský dům (on Příkopy). All within walking distance of Josefov.

Recommended day format: 9:00 departure from your hotel, 9:15-13:30 Josefov (four and a half hours for the full Museum programme), 13:30-14:30 kosher lunch (King Solomon or Dinitz), 14:30-16:00 the Jerusalem Synagogue as an addition (fifteen minutes by V-Class, the driver collects from your hotel), 16:00 return to your hotel. For guests with two days in Prague — an optional second day at Terezín (sixty minutes by V-Class, the former ghetto-transit camp for Czech Jews, now a memorial) or at the surrounding Jewish towns of Bohemia and Moravia (Mikulov, Třebíč — UNESCO).