History of the Jews in the Czech lands

{{short description|none}}  {{Expand Czech|date=July 2018}} {{Infobox ethnic group |group = Czech Jews, Bohemian Jews, Moravian Jews |native_name = Židé v Českých zemích<br/> Juden der böhmischen Länder<br/> (יהדות בוהמיה (צ'כיה<br/>בעמישע יידן |image = Friedberg-Mirohorsky Emanuel Salomon - Jews Taking Snuff 015.jpg |image_caption = Jews taking snuff in Prague, painting by Mírohorský, 1885 |population= 2,349<ref>{{cite web |title=SLDB 2021: Obyvatelstvo podle národnosti, jednotek věku a pohlaví|url=https://vdb.czso.cz/vdbvo2/faces/cs/index.jsf?page=vystup-objekt&pvo=SLD21037-CR&z=T&f=TABULKA&skupId=4571&katalog=33522&pvo=SLD21037-CR&v=v144__null__null__null|work=Public Database|publisher=Czech Statistical Office|language=cs|access-date=2023-02-10}}</ref> |region1 = {{flag|Austria}}, {{flag|United States}}, {{flag|Israel}} |langs = Czech, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Judeo-Czech |rels = Judaism, Frankism, Jewish Brotherhoods |related-c = Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Slovak Jews, Austrian Jews, German Jews, Hungarian Jews, Ukrainian Jews }} {{Jews and Judaism sidebar}} {{Historical populations |title = Historical local Jewish population |type = Czech Republic (not including Slovakia) |footnote = |1921|35699 |1930|37093 |1991|218 |2011|521 |2021|2349 |source = <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Czechoslovakia |title=YIVO | Czechoslovakia |publisher=Yivoencyclopedia.org |access-date=2013-04-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Population_and_Migration/Population_since_World_War_I |title=YIVO | Population and Migration: Population since World War I |publisher=Yivoencyclopedia.org |access-date=2013-04-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Reports/World_Jewish_Population_2010.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2012-03-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209035446/http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Reports/World_Jewish_Population_2010.pdf |archive-date=2012-02-09 }}</ref> }}

The '''history of the Jews in the Czech lands''', historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic (i.e. Bohemia, Moravia, and the southeast or Czech Silesia), goes back at least 1,100 years. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century.<ref name="bh.org.il">{{cite web |title=The Jews of the Czech Republic |url=https://dbs.bh.org.il/place/czech-republic |publisher=The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot |access-date=2018-06-24 |archive-date=2018-06-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180624150944/https://dbs.bh.org.il/place/czech-republic |url-status=dead }}</ref> Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 13th, 16th, 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 3,000 Jews officially registered in the Czech Republic, albeit the actual number is probably as much as ten times higher.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/CZ | title=World Jewish Congress }}</ref>

Jewish people constituted a minority group in the Czech lands. Their population fluctuated depending on the beliefs of the monarch. During the reigns of Přemysl Otakar II and Rudolf II, they were able to prosper, but also experienced exile under Maria Theresa and pogroms under Charles IV.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pogromy Otce vlasti – Maskil המשכיל |url=https://www.maskil.online/2020/03/17/pogromy-otce-vlasti/ |access-date=2025-09-02 |language=cs}}</ref> The Jewish population improved during the Enlightenment, when Joseph II reigned, and in the 19th century, they gained equal rights and began assimilating with the majority. During World War II, the Nazis — who occupied part of Czechoslovakia — began the Holocaust, leading to the death of 80,000 Czech, Moravian and Silesian Jews.<ref name=":0">Wein, Martin. ''A History of Czechs and Jews: A Slavic Jerusalem''. Routledge, 2015. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315749143.</ref> Under the Communist Party, their population dwindled, and they now make up only a fraction of their numbers after the Velvet Revolution.<ref name=":0" />

==Jewish Prague== {{further|History of the Jews in Prague}} Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The 16th century was a "golden age" for Jewry in Prague. The city was called the "Mother of Israel"<ref name="SephardicStudies1">Samuel Usque, The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, p. 1</ref> or "Jerusalem upon Vltava." One of the famous Jewish scholars of the time was Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal, who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life. He is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, and his grave, with its tombstone intact, can still be visited. According to a popular legend, the body of Golem (created by the Maharal) lies in the attic of the Old New Synagogue where the genizah of Prague's community is kept.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.templesanjose.org/JudaismInfo/tradition/Golem.htm |title=''The Golem'', Temple Emanu-El, San Jose |publisher=Templesanjose.org |access-date=2013-04-16 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130916081159/http://www.templesanjose.org/JudaismInfo/tradition/Golem.htm |archive-date=2013-09-16 }}</ref> In 1708, Jews accounted for one-quarter of Prague's population.<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Prague.html Prague], The Virtual Jewish History Tour</ref> Both religiously and demographically, Prague's Jewry has had strong ties to the Jewish communities of Regensburg, Venice, Vienna, Kraków, as well as The Holy Land.

==Austro-Hungarian Empire== [[File:Jeruzalémská_synagoga.JPG|thumb|The Jubilee Synagogue was built between 1898 and 1906, named to mark the 50th anniversary (jubilee) of the HIM Franz Joseph I of Austria]] As part of interwar Czechoslovakia, and before that the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Jews had a long association with this part of Europe.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bohemia/Bohemia.html |title=The Jews and Jewish Communities of Bohemia in the past and present |publisher=Jewishgen.org |date=2013-04-02 |access-date=2013-04-16}}</ref> Throughout the last thousand years, more than 600 Jewish communities have emerged in the Kingdom of Bohemia, including Moravia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.isjm.org/Links/czechsyn.htm |title=Czech Synagogues and Cemeteries |publisher=Isjm.org |date=2003-01-04 |access-date=2013-04-16 |archive-date=2010-04-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100407142018/http://www.isjm.org/Links/czechsyn.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> According to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia, including Subcarpathian Ruthenia, had a Jewish population of 356,830.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007323 |title=The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia |publisher=Ushmm.org |access-date=2013-04-16}}</ref>

==First Czechoslovak Republic== {{further|History of the Jews in Czechoslovakia}} During the 1890s, most Jews were German-speaking and considered themselves Germans.{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=22}}{{sfn|Rothkirchen|2006|p=18}}{{sfn|Gruner|2015|p=99}} By the 1930s, German-speaking Jews had been numerically overtaken by Czech-speaking Jews;{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=152}} Zionism also made inroads among the Jews of the periphery (Moravia and the Sudetenland).{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=250}} In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of Jews came to Prague from small villages and towns in Bohemia, leading to the urbanization of Bohemian Jewish society.{{sfn|Čapková|2012|pp=17, 24–25}} Of the 10 million inhabitants of pre-1938 Bohemia and Moravia, Jews composed only about 1% (117,551). Most Jews lived in large cities such as Prague (35,403 Jews, who made up 4.2% of the population), Brno (11,103, 4.2%), Ostrava (6,865, 5.5%), Teplice (3,213, 11%))<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.holocaust.cz/zdroje/zidovske-komunity-v-cechach-a-na-morave/jiri-fiedler-zidovske-pamatky-v-cechach-a-na-morave/teplice/ | title=Teplice | Holocaust }}</ref> and Pilsen (2,773, 2%)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.holocaust.cz/zdroje/zidovske-komunity-v-cechach-a-na-morave/jiri-fiedler-zidovske-pamatky-v-cechach-a-na-morave/plzen/ | title=Plzeň | Holocaust }}</ref>.{{sfn|Gruner|2015|p=101}}

Antisemitism in the Czech lands was less prevalent than elsewhere, and was strongly opposed by the national founder and first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937),{{sfn|Gruner|2015|p=100}}{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=25}} while secularism among both Jews and non-Jews facilitated integration.{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=24}} Nevertheless, there had been anti-Jewish rioting during the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 and 1920.{{sfn|Rothkirchen|2006|pp=27–28}} Following a steep decline in religious observance in the 19th century, most Bohemian Jews were ambivalent to religion,{{sfn|Čapková|2012|pp=16, 22}} although this was less true in Moravia.{{sfn|Rothkirchen|2006|p=34}} The Jews of Bohemia had the highest rate of intermarriage in Europe:{{sfn|Rothkirchen|2006|p=49}} 43.8% married out of the faith, compared to 30% in Moravia.{{sfn|Čapková|2012|p=22}}

==The Holocaust== {{main|The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia}} thumb|Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia are deported from Croydon airport, England, on 31 March 1939. [[File:Jews with yellow stars in Prague, c. 1942.jpg|thumb|Jews wearing yellow badges in Prague, {{circa|1942}}]] In contrast to Slovak Jews, who were mostly deported by the First Slovak Republic directly to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps, most Czech Jews were initially deported by the German occupiers with the help of local Czech Nazi collaborators to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and later killed. However, some Czech Jewish children were rescued by Kindertransport and escaped to the United Kingdom and other Allied countries. Some were reunited with their families after the war, while many lost parents and relatives to the concentration camps.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

It is estimated that of the 118,310 Jews living in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia upon the German invasion in 1939, 26,000 emigrated legally and illegally; 80,000 were murdered by the Nazis; and 10,000 survived the concentration camps.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kulka |first=Erich |title=Jews in Svoboda's army in the Soviet Union : Czechoslovak Jewry's fight against the Nazis during World War II |date=1987 |publisher=Univ. Press of America |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=9780819165770 |page=xviii}}</ref>

==Today== thumb|left|Jewish communities associated under the Federation of Jewish communities and their administration within the Czech Republic, 2008

Prague has the most vibrant Jewish community in the entire country. Several synagogues operate on a regular daily basis (including the famous Old-New Synagogue, the oldest active synagogue of the world, and the two late 19th century emancipation synagogues, the Spanish Synagogue and the Jerusalem Synagogue, both active places of worship); there are three kindergartens, a Jewish day school, two retirement homes, five kosher restaurants, two mikvot, and a kosher hotel. Three different Jewish magazines are issued every month, and the Prague Jewish community officially has about 1,500 members, but the real number of Jews in the city is estimated to be much higher, between 7,000 and 15,000. Due to years of persecution by both the Nazis and the subsequent Stalinist regime of Klement Gottwald, however, most people do not feel comfortable being registered as such.{{cn|date=April 2025}} In addition, the Czech Republic is one of the most secularized and atheistic countries in Europe.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/19/unlike-their-central-and-eastern-european-neighbors-most-czechs-dont-believe-in-god/ | title=Most Czechs don't believe in God| date=19 June 2017}}</ref>

[[File:Ustek bohosluzba šachris 2023.jpg|thumb|A weekday morning shacharit prayer of a local religious Jew donning on tefillin and tallit in the Úštěk Synagogue, 2023]] There are ten smaller Jewish communities around the country (seven in Bohemia, two in Moravia and two in Silesia. The largest one being in Prague, where close to 90% of all Czech Jews live. The umbrella organisation for Jewish communities and organisations in the country is the Federation of Jewish Communities (Federace židovských obcí, FŽO). Services are regularly held in Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Plzeň, Teplice, Liberec, Karlovy Vary, Děčín and Krnov and irregularly in some other cities, for example Ostrava, Úštěk, Ústí nad Labem or Mikulov.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

There are several kosher restaurants in Prague, and since 2014, the only kosher hotel in Central Europe.

In late January 2024, two youths attempted to set fire to the ''Agudas Achim'' synagogue in Brno using an improvised incendiary device, an act that police investigated as a hate-motivated and terror-linked offence. One of the accused was later charged with attempted arson and other violent crimes, including attempted murder, and the case was brought before the Regional Court in Brno. Police uncovered the plot during an investigation into a group spreading extremist content online and promoting terrorist organisations.<ref>{{Cite web |last=ČTK |title=Pokus o zapálení brněnské synagogy míří k soudu |url=https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/pokus-o-zapaleni-brnenske-synagogy-miri-k-soudu-370214 |access-date=2026-02-15 |website=ct24.ceskatelevize.cz |language=cs}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-06-25 |title=Czech authorities detain 5 teens over online radicalization by IS and charge 2 with terror plot |url=https://apnews.com/article/czech-teenagers-radicalized-islamic-state-97d0ee730763a53ac69508309ec48db4 |access-date=2026-02-15 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dylan |date=2026-02-13 |title=An attempt to set fire to the Brno synagogue is set to go to court |url=https://eurojewcong.org/news/communities-news/czech-republic/an-attempt-to-set-fire-to-the-brno-synagogue-is-set-to-go-to-court/ |access-date=2026-02-15 |website=European Jewish Congress |language=en-US}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Sources== *{{cite book |last=Čapková |first=Kateřina |title=Czechs, Germans, Jews?: National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia |date=2012 |publisher=Berghahn Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-85745-475-1}} *{{cite book |last=Gruner |first=Wolf |editor1-last=Gruner |editor1-first=Wolf |editor2-last=Osterloh |editor2-first=Jörg|translator-last= Heise|translator-first=Bernard |title=The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution Policies in the Annexed Territories 1935-1945|location=New York|series=War and Genocide|date=2015 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-444-1 |pages=99–135|chapter=Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia}} *{{cite book |last=Rothkirchen |first=Livia |author-link=Livia Rothkirchen |title=The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: Facing the Holocaust |date=2006 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln |isbn=978-0803205024}}

==Further reading== *{{cite book |editor1-last=Čapková |editor1-first=Kateřina |editor2-last=Kieval |editor2-first=Hillel J. |title=Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands |date=2021 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9959-5}} *{{cite journal |last1=David |first1=Zdenek V. |title=Hajek, Dubravius, and the Jews: A Contrast in Sixteenth-Century Czech Historiography |journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal |date=1996 |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=997–1013 |doi=10.2307/2543905 |jstor=2543905 |issn=0361-0160}} *{{cite book |last=Gleixner |first=Johannes |title=Jews and Protestants: From the Reformation to the Present |date=2020 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-066471-3 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110664713-010/html|chapter=Standard-bearers of Hussitism or Agents of Germanization?|pages=137–160 |doi=10.1515/9783110664713-010 |s2cid=216337230}} *{{cite book |last=Kieval |first=Hillel J. |title=The making of Czech Jewry: national conflict and Jewish society in Bohemia, 1870-1918 |date=1988 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-504057-9}} *{{cite book |last=Kieval |first=Hillel J. |title=Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands |date=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-21410-1}} *{{cite journal |last=Labendz |first=Jacob Ari |title=Synagogues for sale: Jewish-State mutuality in the communist Czech lands, 1945–1970 |journal=Jewish Culture and History |date=2017 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=54–78 |doi=10.1080/1462169X.2017.1278832|s2cid=159614300 }} *{{cite journal |last1=Sewering-Wollanek |first1=Marlis |last2=Belcher |first2=Mark |title=The Rediscovery of the Jews: Czech History Books since 1989 |journal=Osteuropa |date=2008 |volume=58 |issue=8/10 |pages=289–299 |jstor=44934294 |issn=0030-6428}} *{{cite journal |last=Szabó |first=Miloslav |title=Antijüdische Provokationen |journal=S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. |date=2016 |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=132–135 |url=https://simon-ojs.vwi.ac.at/index.php/simon/article/view/115|issn=2408-9192}} *{{cite book |last=Vobecká |first=Jana |title=Demographic Avant-Garde: Jews in Bohemia between the Enlightenment and the Shoah |date=2013 |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-615-5225-33-8}} *{{cite book |last=Wein |first=Martin |title=History of the Jews in the Bohemian Lands |date=2015 |publisher=Brill |place=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-30127-6}}

==External links== * [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Prague.html The Jewish Virtual Library] - Prague * [http://www.beneden.com/chanukah/ Chanukah celebration in prague, by Jewish community of prague] * [http://www.chabadprague.cz/Default_cdo/lang/en Chabad Prague]

Category:Jewish Czech history