Jewish Prague

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel

A few days ago Shannon, Rowan, and I went out to explore The Jewish Quarter in Prague. Known as Josefov, its history goes back to the 13th century, when Jewish people were ordered to leave their homes and relocate in one area. The monuments even survived the Nazi occupation in the 20th century, when Hitler decided to preserve the Jewish Quarter as a “Museum of an Extinct Race”. Nazis would bring in "artifacts" from other Jewish cities to Prague, since their goal was to end the existence of Judaism. The quarter in Prague is perfectly preserved, and many people from around the world visit the Jewish site every year.

We started by going inside the Pinkas Synagogue, the second oldest surviving synagogue in Prague. The Pinkas Synagogue is connected to the Jewish Museum, and is now used as a memorial for the 80,000 Czech Jews killed from the Holocaust. The names line the walls. It was a very emotional start to the Jewish Prague experience, as it puts into perspective the history you are looking at. These synagogues are all more than just beautiful buildings, they are a haunting reminder of one of the biggest downfalls of humanity.

Behind the synagogue, there is a graveyard for the quarter, and many people and families from the town were buried there. During the Holocaust, many died who could not be buried, so there were memorial markers. The graves seemed to go on for miles, and the snow on them made the scene look even more bleak.

After walking through the graveyard, we headed to the Maisel Synagogue. During the Nazi occupation of the Czech Republic, properties of the Czech Jewish communities were stored in Maisel Synagogue. After the World War II the synagogue became part of the Jewish Museum in Prague. The Maisel synagogue is built in a neo-gothic style, and was surrounded by a bright blue fence!

Everywhere we looked, we could see touches of Jewish influence on the building, including the Stars of David in the stained glass!

After the Maisel Syangogue, we headed to the synagogue we were most excited about: The Spanish Synagogue. The most recently built synagogue in the Jewish Quarter, it is world famous for its unique Moorish Revival style, which was inspired by the art of Arabic period of Spanish art. Next to the synagogue is an interesting Franz Kafka statue, if you understand the deeper meaning behind this, please let me know.

The inside of the synagogue was unlike anything we had ever seen before

One of my favorite parts of visiting religious sites is checking out the worship organs, and look at that beauty!

The light at the top of the synagogue's dome is shaped like the star of David!

Challenge: look at the picture above and try to count all of the Stars of David you see in the details of the Synagogue.

There were many items from Czech Jewish history inside the synagogue, including the precious adornments of Rabis, and books from Sigmond Freud (A Czech Jew, he left and moved to further his scientific reserach!)

All of the architecture and buildings of Jewish Prague were incredible, and we learned so much about Jewish history. One thing that was crazy to me, was that none of this area was open to the public until 1998! During Communism, the government didn't want people to learn about Czech history, so many of its sights were closed to the public. It wasn't until the Velvet Revolution, that people started the reconstruction of many of these historical monuments, and opened them up as museums to the public. Think of how much history could have been lost, never take advantage of FREEDOM!

Since it had snowed the night before we went on this adventure, we decided to take advantage of it, and hiked up to the Prague Castle to see its Cathedral in the snow!

The picture below is actually the spot of a scene in Mission Imposible! We passed by it on our walk to the top.

What a great day to take a walk back through history, and to remind ourselves how valuable freedom is. We all said prayers for all of those affected by the Holocaust, and I hope that humanity never steeps that low again. It really is incredible to me how far we have come as a human race, and the problems in our news (aka Trump 24/7) really don't seem that significant when you look at these tragedies of the past.

"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank