A little history
To take full advantage of the visit to the Jewish Quarter and decipher its current face, let us quickly replace some historical milestones. If it seems that Jews began to settle in Prague at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries, it was only in the 13th century, and as part of a policy of segregation, that they found themselves walled up between the Old Town Square and the Vltava. From then on, they obtain a status of autonomy - autonomy of course limited to the ghetto - and the community develops by following its own path, regardless of what happens and is decided in the rest of the city. The ghetto also lives thanks to its own administrative services, becoming a kind of bubble in the heart of Prague. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Prague became one of the largest ghettos in the world: nearly 11,000 Jews live there permanently, while there are less than 200 buildings! In 1783, Joseph II restored the civil and religious rights of non-Catholic communities, especially Jews. It was to commemorate this act that the district was renamed Josefov in 1850, when it became a real Prague district. But having lost his autonomy, Josefov will also have to catch up with the rest of the city in terms of urban planning, and the crowding of past centuries has been such that it seems much easier to destroy everything to rebuild. Houses and wooden buildings erected in an uncontrolled manner have become epidemic nests and potential sources of fire. In 1848, the walls that separated the Jews from the rest of the population were demolished, as were the six gates that managed access to the Jewish quarter.
A new face
In the second half of the 19th century, the district was part of a radical plan of renovation: all the houses were razed to the ground and only the synagogues and the cemetery remained. A few years later, Josefov completely changed its face, especially with the street Pařížská, the axis cutting it in two and linking the Old Town Square to the Vltava River, displaying a superb architectural continuity in the style of Secession - the Czech name for Art Nouveau - which still offers the same magic. In the 1930s, the Josefov district became one of the most prosperous in Prague and the Jewish community numbered more than 100,000 in Czechoslovakia. As President Masaryk wished, Jews were then full Czechoslovak citizens, enjoying the same rights and duties as their compatriots. Since the policies of neighboring countries such as Poland and Hungary were much more segregationist, Prague appeared to be an island of well-being for the Jewish community, and the population rose to 135,000. After the Nazi genocide, during which nearly 80,000 Jews were deported to Terezín, and the purges of the post-war communist regime, only 10,000 Jews survived and fewer than 2,000 still live in Prague, although they are not necessarily concentrated in Josefov. Still classified as one of the most beautiful streets in the world, Pařížská offers an extraordinary sight: colourful houses, statues and friezes decorating the facades, caryatids supporting balconies with ironwork with plant motifs, sculpted doors... We are therefore very far from the idea of an "old Jewish ghetto". To get an idea of what the district was like, one has to stand in front of the Old-New synagogue: its sinking into the ground is a testimony to its age and the large layer of debris from the old district that was covered during its modernization.
A dark page
Until the Second World War, the Jewish population of Prague continued to prosper and grow, and Josefov had a population of almost 20,000 in the 1930s. During World War II, most of the Jewish buildings in Prague outside Josefov were razed to the ground, with the exception of the Jubilee Synagogue in Nové Mesto. The Third Reich did indeed want to turn Josefov into a kind of museum and, while exterminating the population, stored in the empty buildings a large number of objects and archives related to Judaism and resulting from looting all over Europe. Today they constitute the very heterogeneous collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague. A visit to the old quarter will occupy a good day during your stay, with the various synagogues. Early in the morning or late in the evening, to avoid the crowds, you will also visit the very photogenic Jewish cemetery, where all eyes will be looking carefully for the tomb of Rabbi Löw, the man who is said to have given life to the Golem, the legendary figure, protector of Prague's Jewish community. The Jewish city also had its own town hall, which today houses the Prague Rabbinate and is not open to the public, but whose beautiful clock, decorated with Hebrew characters and whose hands turn upside down, can be admired. But Jewish Prague is not limited to Josefov: in Nové Mesto, the Jubilee synagogue shows a desire to include Jews in Prague society and displays an astonishing architecture combining Moorish lines and Art Nouveau style. In Žižkov, the new Jewish cemetery, built in 1890, is also worth a visit for its many Art Nouveau-style tombs or for the celebrities buried there, first and foremost Franz Kafka. It is not the only place of memory connected with the famous Prague Jewish writer: the facade of his birth house is also still visible in the Old Town Square.
A lively neighborhood
But beyond this heavy past, Josefov remains a dynamic and lively district at all hours of the day and night. Since independence, the largest luxury brands have been competing for the windows of Pařížská street. Shopping, restaurants, bars and nightclubs: nothing is missing to discover the other face of "Jewish Prague" which, as soon as you leave the museums, is no longer really Jewish. Of course, you can always taste excellent kosher cuisine at King Solomon's restaurant on Siroka Street, but as soon as night falls, the chic cocktail bars, retro, vintage or techno nightclubs give the district a completely different face appreciated by locals and tourists alike, and give a breath of life to a district that suffocates under its tourist success during the day.
Warning: it is not recommended to visit this area on Saturdays and during Jewish holidays as all museums are closed.
