Jewish Prague

Prague's Jewish Quarter in Old Town is special because the city wasn't destroyed during World War II, and the Nazis chose to preserve it to serve as a museum about the "extinct race" after their victory. I knew this much before my trip here, but I had no idea what any of that meant about the Jewish community here now.

Apparently Prague was 10% Jewish before the war, and now there are somewhere around 3,000 Jews (out of 1.3 million residents). So the community is extremely small, and there are 4 rabbis in the entire country. Last week, on my first full day here, we went to the only conservative service in the city (and I think the country), which was held in a meeting room in the "Jewish Town Hall" which is like a JCC.

The service itself was nothing like I expected, mostly because it was held in this room but also because the rabbi is American. It gave me the impression that the Jewish community is coming back thanks to outside help, and not from active Czech Jews. But there is a Jewish "youth" group here, with people from about 21-35, so maybe that's not true.

I was pretty uncomfortable because it was strange praying around a table facing other people, and because while the people from my program were sitting at the table, others kept coming in and awkwardly sitting behind us, and I had no idea who they were. But then, completely out of the blue, a girl from my synagogue in Palo Alto walked in with some friends who are on a vacation from their year in Israel. So that made me feel a little more at home.

This week's Friday night services were completely different. We went to the Old New Synagogue (pictured with overly dramatic light - not my picture), which I was told is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in the world. I guess the Nazis allowed services to continue here as part of the museum, but I'm not sure if that's right. Anyway, it's a really small building, and the bimah (stage) is in the middle, and everyone sits around it. Being there, I felt like I could have been living in any of the last five centuries, because it would have looked and probably felt exactly the same.

There was an old man sitting across from me, and I wondered if he was a Holocaust survivor who had prayed in this synagogue since before the war. I spent a lot of the service (and most of the rabbi's 25 minute sermon, which was translated from Czech into English by a member of the congregation) thinking about what praying here must mean to him.

The only disappointing part of a really amazing service was that women sat in an outer ring of the building, with about 4 ft x 1 ft holes in the wall to watch and listen through. I wish they could have experienced services sitting in the main room. When the holes were added centuries ago, it was actually a progressive idea to even allow women to see what was going on.

After the service, we had dinner in the Jewish Town Hall with the youth group. I was sitting next to a couple of the Czech students in my program, and across from one of the members of the youth group, and we didn't say anything to her for about the first ten minutes. I was scared that I would say something and she wouldn't speak English and I wouldn't know what to do. So I was absolutely stunned when after ten minutes she looked at me and with a perfect British accent said, "So how long have you been here?" She turned about to be a British student studying abroad, so we talked for most of dinner.

After the meal, the Israeli Ambassador to the Czech Republic and a woman who I think is working on public affairs with the embassy here because the Czech Republic currently holds the EU Presidency came to have a conversation with the youth group. The kids from my program stayed, as did that old man who I spent most of services thinking about, and who I found out later escaped East during the war and fought with the Russians. He walked up to the Israeli Ambassador at the beginning, yelling in Yiddish, and then in Czech, but he ambassador said he only spoke English and Hebrew (which makes no sense to me). But anyway, the guy apparently was furious about Israel's actions in Gaza, and he called Israelis "murderers." I still really don't know what to make of this, but it's definitely something I'll continue to think about.

The ambassador himself didn't speak except for answering the last question, so the woman spoke and answered everything else. It was entirely about the Gaza operation. And every single question asked was critical of the operation in some way. The most obvious thing was that Israel was completely confident in the justification, but had not developed a post-operation plan. She even said that this was not Israel's responsibility, but the responsibility of the "international community." The other things I really disagreed with was that one of the goals of the operation was to "reduce Hamas' motivation." I have no idea how this can be accomplished by the operation. She also danced around any question about settlement expansion. Personally, taking military action makes sense to me when you have terrorists firing rockets daily into your country, but I think Israel really underestimated the global reaction. I asked about the Turkish Prime Minister who stormed out of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week after ranting about the Gaza operation, and how Israel planned to deal with this rift with countries who they consider to be allies. She said Israel was very surprised about the incident, and it seemed pretty clear that they didn't have a response.

Also, on Monday the Jewish Studies track went on a tour of the Jewish Quarter. My favorite part was the Spanish Synagogue, because it blew my mind that a synagogue could look like that. I kept having to remind myself that it was a synagogue, not a church. I think this is just because I always see beautiful churches in books and on tv, and I'm not used to seeing synagogues that are artistically remarkable. So this is a picture I got online because they don't allow pictures there.

We also went to the Jewish Cemetery, which was used between the 1400s and 1776. 80,000 people are buried there, and it's hilly because there are up to 12 layers of bodies (creepy!).

Next week we have Friday night services somewhere else, and I'm pretty excited to keep seeing different sides of the very small community here.

As for traveling, my trip to Dresden this weekend isn't happening. Apparently train prices go way up right before the day of departure, so we'll have to plan that one in advance next time. But I'm going to Milan and Venice with my entire apartment in 2 weeks! And this Thursday we're going to a sold-out Czech Republic vs. Finland hockey game, and Jaromir Jagr may be playing for the Czechs.