Prague Perfect Tour

PRAGUE JEWISH TOWN

HOLOCAUST TOURS

Duration:  4 hours walking tour, every day

Are you interested in learning about the history of Jews in Prague? Do legends and old mystics fascinate you? Or maybe you would be interested in learning more about the famous and mysterious Franz Kafka? Or the Rabbi Jehuda Low Benzalel, the creator of Golem?

If so, then come and visit Josefov, the Prague Jewish town and formal Jewish ghetto. As well as the surrounding area, which happens to be home to the oldest acting Synagogue in Europe. Here, you will be able to visit the Jewish Museum, including the Old New synagogue, Maisel, Pinkas, Klausen, and the Spanish synagogues, which display many artifacts pertaining to Prague's 1000 years of Jewish history. As well, you will have the chance to visit the Old Jewish Cemetery and Ceremony Hall. Take note of the Jewish town hall clock where time goes backwards!

Ironically, the Nazis gathered these with the intentions of creating a museum of an extinguished race!

The Prague Jewish Town is called Josefov after Joseph II who was an enlightened monarch. He gave the Jews in Prague their civil rights in 1781 when he issued the Toleration Edict. This edict rescinded the old law that required the Jews to wear distinctive caps or the yellow Star of David on their clothing, a law which had been in effect since the 11th century.

The edict also allowed the Jews to attend public schools with the Christians for the first time and to engage in occupations that had previously been forbidden.

Ironically, Joseph II also ordered the construction of a military garrison at Theresienstadt, 60 kilometers northwest of Prague. From November 1941 until the war ended on May 8, 1945, the Nazis used Theresienstadt (in Czech language called Terezin) as a ghetto where the Jews once again had to wear the yellow star. Terezin was used as a transit camp from where the Nazis transported 86,934 Jews to the death camps as part of their Final Solution to the Jewish Question.