After having seen all what we were supposed to see in the guided tour of Prague city on 7 September, we convinced our local tour guide to take us to the Jewish Quarter in Prague. To preempt our disappointment, the guide did warn us that "there is really nothing much to see in Prague Jewish Quarter because it is a very small area. There is a couple of synagogues and an old cemetery which one can peep through gaps in the wall to have a look".
Jewish diaspora is not an easy subject to comprehend. The Bible has clear references about the dispersion of the Jews from their homeland, Israel - "...The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you". Deuteronomy 4:28. Yet the subsequent pogroms and extermination of the Jews in many parts of Europe has caused much bewilderment and retrospection.
The Jewish Quarter also called the Josefov was first settled by dispersed Jews in the 10th century. Soon after the first expulsion of Jews in late 11th century, it was reduced to become a walled up ghetto. It had to endure another more serious pogrom and massacre in 1389 before it enjoyed better time under King Joseph II of the Holy Roman Empire in mid 19th century. Jews were then allowed to live outside the walled ghetto.
The Jewish Quarter also called the Josefov was first settled by dispersed Jews in the 10th century. Soon after the first expulsion of Jews in late 11th century, it was reduced to become a walled up ghetto. It had to endure another more serious pogrom and massacre in 1389 before it enjoyed better time under King Joseph II of the Holy Roman Empire in mid 19th century. Jews were then allowed to live outside the walled ghetto.
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| The wooded area which is the Old Jewish Cemetery occupies the bulk of the Jewish Quarter. |
As we stepped into the narrow lane leading to the walled Old Jewish Cemetery, the little stores by the road side selling souvenirs which are unmistakably Jewish confirmed we were in Jewish territory.
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| Menorah - the seven-lamp Hebrew lampstand. |
Shop selling among others figurines of orthodox bearded Jews with black hair sidelocks and Hasidic hat.
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| A local synagogue. |
Many come to visit the Old Cemetery and the Klausen Synagogue. This synagogue is unique because it is the only baroque synagogue in this former ghetto.
The Old Jewish Cemetery is reckoned to be one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The first recorded gravestone dates 1439 and the last burial was in 1787, three years after burial was banned in this cemetery.
With such a tight space, the only solution to accommodate more burials was to add layers after layers of imported earth over existing graves. There are literally thousands of burials after three and a half centuries. There are areas where as many as twelve layers of burials had been carried out. For each topping, previous gravestones had to be uprooted and replanted on the new layer. This explains the densely packed gravestones in this cemetery.
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Recent prominent individual who can be traced to the Jewish ancestry in Prague is Madeleine Albright, the first lady state secretary of USA. She was born in Prague in 1937 and named Marie Jana Korbelova. Her parents Josef and Anna converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1941 during the time Czechoslovakia was occupied by Hitler's Germany. The family first moved to UK and eventually to the US in 1948. She was appointed US Ambassador to the UN in 1993 by Clinton and eventually as US State Secretary in January 1997 during the second term of Clinton.
Jewish diaspora finally has a place to return to when David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948. For a people who was almost extinct, it is understandable the returnees would do whatever they could to prevent another dispersion of their people.
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