Jews have lived in the territory of today’s Czech Republic for more than a thousand years. The Old-New Synagogue, built around 1270, is the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe. One of the most significant figures in the history of Prague’s Jewish community was Rabbi Jehuda Löw ben Bezalel, the famous “Maharal of Prague.” He was a renowned scholar in Judaic and Kabbalistic studies and is associated with many legends, including the story of the Golem. He is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, alongside other prominent Jewish personalities such as Avigdor Kara, David Gans, and Mordechai Maisel, who served as the treasurer of Emperor Rudolf II. Prague was also known for its medieval Jewish publishing house, established by the Gersonides family.
Other towns in Bohemia and Moravia also played important roles in Jewish history, including Kolín, Mikulov (Nikolsburg), Třebíč, Holešov, and Boskovice, where many rabbis and scholars resided. During the medieval period, Jews lived relatively safely under the protection of the King, who valued them as a source of tax revenue. However, as in the rest of Europe, this peaceful coexistence was disrupted by the Crusades. One of the worst pogroms in Prague occurred in 1389, an event commemorated by an elegy written by Avigdor Kara, which is still read in the Old-New Synagogue each year. Jews also faced expulsions, such as the one ordered by Empress Maria Theresa between 1745 and 1748. It was only with the reforms of Emperor Joseph II that Jewish communities gained some degree of freedom, which was fully established in 1848. This allowed Jews to integrate into public life and contribute significantly to the economic, cultural, and scientific development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia (1918), was a strong opponent of anti-Semitism. Early in his career as a philosophy professor, he took a stand during the infamous Hilsner trial—a blood libel case reminiscent of the Dreyfus Affair. Later, he became the first head of state to visit Palestine. Under the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), Jews experienced an unprecedented level of freedom, equality, and security. By 1930, the Jewish population of Czechoslovakia numbered approximately 350,000, with 120,000 living in Bohemia and Moravia, 120,000 in Slovakia, and the remainder in Subcarpathian Ruthenia (now part of Ukraine). After Hitler came to power in 1933, many German Jews sought refuge in Czechoslovakia, increasing the Jewish population to over 400,000, as the country was seen as a bastion of democracy in Europe at that time.
The Holocaust was a catastrophe for Czech Jewry. It began with the expulsion of Jews from the Sudetenland following the Munich Agreement in 1938 and culminated with the liberation of the Terezín concentration camp in late 1945, after a devastating typhus epidemic. By 1945–1946, only around 30,000 Jews remained in Bohemia and Moravia, attempting to rebuild their communities. However, their struggles continued when the Communists took power in February 1948. While some Jews were able to emigrate to Israel, those who stayed endured further persecution, particularly during the early 1950s, marked by the anti-Semitic Slánský trial. A brief period of relative freedom in the late 1960s was crushed by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, prompting another wave of Jewish emigration. Under the Communist “normalization” policy of the Husák regime, Jewish life was further suppressed.
It was only after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 that freedom was restored to Czech society and its Jewish community.
