Prague's Jewish Quarter and residents

On our second morning in Prague, we were treated to a talk from a local rabbi.  Rabbi Ron Hoffberg came to the seating area of our hotel breakfast room and talked to us about his experiences in the city.  He was born in Chicago, and after finishing college he attended rabbinic seminary in the Conservative Movement, which is traditional but moderate -- not Orthodox.  He served for years in a New Jersey congregation, but the past dozen or so years he has been living in Prague.  He was interesting and funny, and he gave us a sense of what it's like for Jews today to live in Prague.  The Jews are overwhelmingly not Orthodox, but the community institutions are controlled by the few Orthodox Jews.  Rabbi Hoffburg enjoys helping serve the community and also teaches at Charles University, which has thousands of foreign students. His description of the vibrant student life in the city convinced a couple of us to investigate applying for international study in Prague.

Our tour guide guided us by tram to the Jewish Quarter.  We learned about the very long history of the Jewish community in Prague, and how the Jews eventually lived in a section of the city that became so decrepit that it was torn down and reconstructed in the early twentieth century.  But the old Jewish synagogues and some of the community buildings were saved and reconstructed.  Now these buildings are all part of the Jewish Museum complex.  One of them serves as the museum with artifacts from the first few hundred years of Prague Jewish life, while another one has artifacts from a later era.

The Maisel Synagogue was transformed into a memorial for all the Jews in Czechoslovakia who were murdered in the Holocaust. All the walls are filled with the names of every single Jew who died (see photo on left).  The red writing indicates the town, and then the surnames of the people and the dates of their lives are in other colors.  It was very moving to see them all.  Our tour guide told us the story of how Madeline Albright, when she was Secretary of State, visited Prague, saw her family surname, and was reconnected with someone in Prague who knew more about her background than she did. This was how she learned that her parents had been Jews.

The most intricately designed synagogue is the Spanish synagogue, so-called because of the Moorish style.  It was awesome!


The Alt-Neu synagogue, or Old-New synagogue, was associated with the famous Prague rabbi.  Michelle reports on him:

Rabbi Judah Loew was born in about 1512, or 1520, or 1526 -- no one really knows-- in Pozen (Poland).  He served as rabbi in the city of Mikulov in Moravia.  He is most often associated with his service to the community in Prague, where he became the spiritual head of the Jewish community.  He was a talmudic scholar and established a Talmudic academy. He was also famous amongst non-Jews for his great knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences and was friends with astronomers Brahe and Kepler. With that knowledge, he wrote about the Jewish calendar, but he is most famous for his commentary on the Torah, which is actually a commentary on a commentary. He insisted that his pupils had a good understanding of the Bible and Mishnah before they began studying the Talmud -- this background seems obvious to us, but it was actually rather unusual.

Rabbi Loew is most known for his creation and animation of the Golem of Prague – but this is a legend, and there's not much basis for thinking it occurred. A Golem is a human-like creature. 

de-animated Golem

According to the story, the rabbi created a golem from the clay of the Vlata River to defend Jews who were going to be killed by Rudolf II, the Holy Roman emperor.  He used the name of G-d to bring it to life, written on a piece of parchment and inserted into its mouth.  The legend has many different endings, and a common one was that the rabbi once forgot to de-animate the Golem during the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, and the Golem was so angry that he damaged property.  Another one is that when the rabbi forgot to de-animate the Golem it dissolved back into its original clay form. Legend says that the remains of the Golem were placed in the attic of the synagogue. Upon excavation in the early 1900’s, people hunted for it but no such remains were found.  The legend of the Golem of Prague lives on.


After free time in the afternoon, we all gathered at a tram station to meet Ladislaw, who is the president of the Jewish college organization in the Czech Republic. We walked together to a beautiful, huge park that is on a hill overlooking the city.  Great views!

Ladislaw talking
Serena listening intently

We eventually reached an area with an outdoor cafe and lots of seating areas. It was great to talk to a resident of the city who was so patient in answering our questions about normal, everyday life in the city, and also some of the political issues. He described some of the programs that he organizes for college students, and he gave us great suggestions for what to do in Prague in our free time.