Josefov

Yesterday and part of this morning we spent in The Jewish Quarter (Josefov) of Prague.  Like much of Prague there is a long history here.  As the Nazis set out to decimate the Jewish communities throughout Europe, the Jews in Prague were allowed to collect and archive the religious and historic items they treasured.  Overall, their work survived – they did not. 

Mordecai Maisel, a wealthy banker who often lent large sums of money to Emperor Rudolph II, built the Maisel Synagogue (Maiselova Synagóga) as a private place to worship in 1592.  The original building was mostly destroyed in a fire in 1689 and a new one was built in its place.  During WWII this is where the Jewish treasures were warehoused.  It is now a museum.  It is filled with richly embroidered curtains from ancient synagogues, Silver Torah Crowns dating back to the Renaissance, plates, candle sticks, letters – the treasures of over one thousand years of Jewish history in Bohemia and Moravia. 

The Pinkas Synagogue (Pinkasova Synagóga) was an active site of worship for more than 400 years.  It is now a memorial to the 77,297 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust.  The walls are covered with the handwritten names of all 77,297 who died.  When the communists took over Prague, they closed the synagogue and “erased” everything.  In 1989, after the Velvet Revolution, all the names were re-written on the walls.  Near the ceiling you can see little bits of the original writing.  As you walk through this space you hear a recording of a voice reading the names alternating with the voice of a cantor singing Psalms.  While there were other visitors to this site, at this time of year it was not busy at all.  The voice of the cantor resonated in the space and it really felt like a sacred place.  I have tears now just remembering. 

Upstairs is the Terezin Children’s Art Exhibit.  I need to spend more time reading about Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, the remarkable artist and art teacher who taught art classes to the children of the Terezin Concentration camp.  We had considered taking a day trip to Terezin, but I decided I did not have the emotional reserve to do that at this time. 

Just outside the Pinkas Synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery.  From 1439 – 1787 this was the only burial ground allowed to Jews of Prague.  12,000 tombstones are crammed into a relatively small space.  As the ground has settled the tombstones have pitched and swayed making it more sculptural than orderly.  Throughout the cemetery there are pebbles placed on tombstones and wedged under those pebbles are scraps of papers containing prayers.  The headstone of Rabbi Loew (Löw), containing many pebbles and scraps of paper, was clearly being the most visited grave in the cemetery.

From the cemetery we went to the Old-New Synagogue (Staronová Synagóga). 

For more than 700 years this has been the most important synagogue and the central building in Josefov.  Built in 1270, it’s the oldest surviving synagogue in Eastern Europe. 

 

 The rungs for the Golem to get to the Rafters.

For Josh and me, visiting the Old-New Synagogue, and talking about Rabbi Löw and the Golem, was a fitting way to transition out of the grief-filled space of the Pinkas Synagogue.  Rabbi Löw, was a scholar, philosophical writer, and director of a Talmudic school in the late 16^th Century.  He was also thought to have magical powers.  As legend has it, he created a figure, the Golem, from clay and then brought it to life by placing a magical stone tablet in its mouth.  Rabbi Löw wanted the Golem to help defend the Prague ghetto from pogroms.  There are multiple versions of this legend, but in many the Golem got increasingly violent, and the Rabbi had to remove the tablet and hide him in the rafters of the Old-New Synagogue. 

My colleague at Gustavus, Elizabeth Baer has studied and written extensively about the Golem legend. Before we left, she told us a wonderful story.  Apparently so many people have asked the guides at the Old-New Synagogue how the Golem got up to the rafters, they finally put ladder-like rungs on an outside wall, so they had something to point to when tourists asked.

I have few photos to share from this experience because most of the locations did not allow photos.  I also have no witty quips or one-liners.  When I teach my classes on the role of story in our lives I frequently draw on the work created by StoryCorps.  If you are an NPR listener – you are familiar with this project.  One of the basic tenets of StoryCorps is “that we all want to know our lives mattered and we won’t ever be forgotten.”  The treasures that were archived and protected from the Nazis, the thousands of names that were handwritten, and re-written on the walls and the topsy-turvy tombstones packed side by side are all engraved in my memory.  They will not be forgotten.