Day 8: Prague

Day 8:  Prague

Today we toured the Jewish quarter of Prague.


We spent the morning learning about the ups and downs of the Jewish community of this beautiful city.  Like all such communities, with apologies to Dickens, there were the best of times and the worst of times.

The earliest grave markers in the cemetery are from the early 15th century, but clearly the Jewish community was here earlier ... perhaps as early as the 10th century.  Like all communities in Europe the Jews came to Prague at the bidding of the local rulers, who hired them to be their money lenders and tax collectors.  (Something, of course, which which greatly endeared them to the local population ... who already considered them the murderers of their Lord)  

Prague is probably best known as the home of the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew, a rabbi of great intellect and erudition.  He was a great Judaic scholar and a master of mystic texts ... and the creator of the Golem.  The legend is that the Maharal created the Golem, with God's help and instructions to protect the Jewish community in times it was under attack from the surrounding community.

We toured 4 synagogues, two of which remain working synagogues and two which now simply serve as museums.  In each of the synagogues are displayed articles of the precious legacy.  Prague was the collection point, of course, for the Judaica from around the Czech Republic ... to store it and protect it during the Nazi occupation.  This is the story of our precious Torah although the synagogue in which the scrolls were stored is not in the city center, so we did not visit that location.  But we saw beautiful Judaica that, ironically, as perhaps was evilly intended, now is displayed as a legacy of a community that used to be.

Tags can be found on much of the Judaica, identifying the individual family, or community from which it came ... and remaining sadly for people or communities that no longer exist to return and claim them.

The "Pinchas" synagogue has been turned into a memorial to all Jewish/Czech victims of the Shoah. Along its walls are painted the names of each victim, listed first by city or town and then alphabetically within each town.  We found the city of Kolin and witnessed the names of all those lost  from the town of our precious little Torah.  On the second floor of the synagogue is a moving exhibition of the artwork of the children of Terezin.  An art therapist, imprisoned in Terezin worked with the children to help them to deal with their horrific life experiences.  The artwork survives as testimony to the horrors of Terezin (contrary to the Red Cross report of the time) and to the children, deported to Auschwitz only months after the Red Cross reported on the exemplary living conditions of the Jewish community imprisoned at Terezin.  (In fact, the Germans did such a great job of deceiving the Red Cross, that they found no reason to move on to the next camp they were to visit ... as they were told they would find a Auschwitz the same exemplary living conditions!)



Along the way we learned a bit about the Czech psyche.  Unlike Poland and Hungary, the Czech people are not very religious.  They are first and foremost Czech and atheist.  Most houses of worship are fairly empty as Czech's are just not interested.  Add in the destructive results of 40 years of oppressive communism and most people just want to live their own life.  Their is a strong unwillingness to get involved as it has been drummed into them the dangers of involvement.  One of the things that is clear is that communist rule hammered into peoples heads a great suspicion of each other.  With freedom that suspicion may have changed somewhat ... but only into a distinct indifference about others.  As our tour guide told us, it may take two or more generations to grow up in freedom to overcome the psychic damage incurred by 70 years of Nazi and them communist oppression.

Following lunch we walked to the Charles Bridge, the only bridge that connected the "lesser" city of Prague from the Castle district for hundreds of years.  In the middle of the bridge is a 16th century statue of Jesus on the crucifix surrounded by the words "kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Adonai tz'vaot" (Holy, holy, holy is the God of hosts).  It was quite striking and a little disturbing to see the words of the "kedushah", the climax of our prayer service, surrounding the crucifix.  We were told by our tour guide that this is because this is one of the only places in the Jewish bible that seems to explicitly refer to the trinity (kadosh, kadosh, kadosh).  

The bridge is for pedestrian traffic only and the bridge is filled vendors and musicians and hundreds and hundreds of tourists.  It was another "Disneyland but for real" moment.

Some of us continued across the bridge to the Castle district side and did a bit of shopping, tasted some local treats and visited a graffiti wall dedicated to John Lennon (on which, at the very top of the wall I discovered LUTZ tagged onto the wall ... (I didn't do it, really).


In the evening we joined together for dinner in restaurant underneath the main music house, which is now having its annual music festival currently celebrating the music of Mozart and Dvorak.  We had a tasty traditional Czech meal ... and then headed back to the Hotel to rest and relax for our next day journey to Kolin.

Tomorrow:  our journey to our Torah's home, Kolin.