Praha, Czechoslovakia

PRAGUE (Praha) capital of Czechoslovakia. Prague is the oldest Jewish community in Bohemia. Jews first settled there in the tenth century. During the Crusades, Jews were murdered and others forced to convert. Under the reign of Przemysl Ottokar (1254-68), Jews were allowed to establish a Jewish quarter. Toward the end of the 13th century, the famous Altneuschul was inaugurated. Jews were engaged in money lending. They suffered from persecution during the years 1298 and 1338. The great kabbalist Avigdor Kara (d. 1439), who served as a rabbi in Prague, described the murder of 3,000 Jews in 1389 in an elegy, which was incorporated subsequently into prayers recited by Prague Jews on Yom Kippur. In the 15th century the Jewish quarter was looted several times. Despite the fact that Jews were expelled on several occasions during the 16th century, their numbers increased rapidly. In 1522 there were about 600 Jews in Prague and in 1541 about 1,200. Prague became a center of Jewish learning in Europe and in 1512, Gershom ben Shelomo Kohen opened the first Hebrew press north of the Alps. Under Rudolf II (1576-1611) and Matthias (1611-19) the status of the Jews improved. During this time, regarded as the Golden Age of the Jews of Prague, R. Yehuda Loew (1525-1609), the Maharal" of Prague, created the golem according to legend. Yom Tov Lippman Heller (1579-1609) became chief rabbi of Prague and wrote the Tosafot Yom Tov. David Gans (1541-1613), an astronomer and scientist, also lived here at this time. In 1627, Jews from all over Bohemia settled in Prague. In order to stop the influx, several restrictions were imposed in 1650. In 1680, about 3,000 Jews died of the plague and three years later nearly all of the Jewish quarter, including 11 synagogues, burned down. In 1726, Charles VI imposed the Familiants Laws, which stipulated that only the eldest son could marry and establish a family, the other males in the family having no alternative but to remain single or leave Bohemia. In 1744, Maria Theresa expelled the Jews from Prague, but four years later, promising to pay high taxes, they were allowed to resettle. In 1754 a second fire caused serious damage to the Jewish quarter. Despite all difficulties and disabilities, the community remained a center of Jewish learning. In 1718, David Oppenheim (1664-1736), the well known bibliophile, presided in Prague as chief rabbi of Bohemia. Yonatan Eybeschuetz (1690-1767), the kabbalist, became head of one of several flourishing yeshivot in Prague. Another yeshiva was headed by Chief Rabbi Yehezkel Landau (1755-93). During the reign of Joseph II, the Jews won emancipation but were forced to attend regular schools and serve in the army. With the 1848 revolution, they were given equal rights. In 1852 the ghetto was opened and named Josefstadt. During the second half of the 19th century the majority of Jews tended to adopt the German language and German culture. As antisemitism grew in the 1880s and 1890s, a Czech assimilationist movement (Cechu Zidu Svaz) developed. In 1896, the J. quarter was restored and many houses were torn down. Only the Altneuschul, the quarter's cemetery with over 15,000 tombstones, and the J. city hall from 1560 were left untouched. In 1880, the Jewish population was 20,508, increasing to 27,289 in 1900 and to 35,463 in 1930 and representing 46% of all Bohemian Jews. During these years, almost half the Jews were engaged in trade, about 22% were lawyers, and 8% doctors. In 1906, the J. Museum of Prague was founded. Before WWI, the Bar Kochba students organization under the leadership of Samuel Hugo Bergman became a center of cultural Zionism. In 1911-12, Albert Einstein taught at the German University of Prague. The Prague circle (Prager Kreis), produced writers like Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Max Brod (1884-1968), and Franz Werfel (1890-1945) who gained international recognition. The conductor/composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) lived several years in Prague The community maintained various women's and welfare organizations and several Jewish schools. Some synagogues modernized their liturgy, but not necessarily in accordance with the Reform movement. After WWI and the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic, the process of secularization became intense and Prague had one of the highest percentages of mixed marriages in Europe -24% in 1927 and 30% in 1930. Jews supported the Realist Party of T.G. Masaryk. In Aug. 1933 the 18th Zionist Congress was held in Prague From 1935, two years after Hitler's rise to power in Germany, there was a constant influx of refugees from Germany and in 1938 also from Austria and the Sudetenland. In March 1939, after the Nazi occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia, mainly Bohemia and Moravia, the number of Jews in PRAGUE was about 56,000. In July 1939, the Reichsprotektor Constantin von Neurath founded a Central Office for J. Emigration (Zentralstelle für Jüdische Auswanderung) headed by Adolf Eichmann. With the outbreak of war in September 1939 several prominent Prague Jews, among them Marie Schmolka and Hanna Steiner, both engaging in rescue work for the refugees, were arrested and deported as hostages to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Jewish organizations increasingly devoted their activities to social welfare and emigration. By the end of 1939, the Palestine Office of Prague, headed by Yaakov Edelstein, who subsequently became J. Elder (Jude· nältester) in the Theresienstadt ghetto, succeeded in bringing about the emigration of 19,000 Jews. The Palestine Office continued its work until April 1941. In Feb. 1940, the authority of the Central Office for J. Emigration was extended over the entire Protectorate. Consequently the J. community became officially the central organization of the Jews in the Protectorate and responsible for implementing various Nazi measures. It was forced to provide the Nazis with lists of candidates for deportation and to ensure that they arrived at the assembly point. From Oct. 1941 until March 1945, 46,067 Jews were deported from Prague, mostly to Theresienstadt, but also directly to the east. The Nazis set up a Trustee's Office (Treuhandstelle) responsible for the abandoned apartments, furniture, and other possessions. Since the goods were stored in 11 synagogues as well as 54 warehouses all over Prague, these synagogues were not destroyed. Some of the goods were also sold to the German Winter Aid (Winterhilfe). As deportations got under way, J. scholars made efforts to save the artifacts and archives of the abandoned J. communities. From 1942-43, about 5,400 religious objects, 24,500 prayer books, and 6,070 historical artifacts as well as over 300,000 documents were collected and catalogued. The Nazis meant to use the collection for a Central Museum of the Extinguished Jewish Race, but after the war it became one of the richest collections of Jewish art in the world. About 4,980 Jews returned from the concentration camps; 227 had been living underground. In 1948-49 many of the survivors settled in Israel or emigrated overseas.