Nothing But Words

The Old Jewish Cemetery View at Picasa The Old Jewish Cemetery07-Aug-2009 16:43, SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.02 sec, ISO 100	The Old Jewish Cemetery View at Picasa The Old Jewish Cemetery07-Aug-2009 16:43, SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 100	The Old-New Synagogue View at Picasa The Old-New Synagogue07-Aug-2009 17:13, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.008 sec, ISO 100
Ceremonial Hall View at Picasa Ceremonial Hall07-Aug-2009 17:12, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100	The Jewish Quarter has many beautiful Art Nouveau and Baroque buildings View at Picasa The Jewish Quarter has many beautiful Art Nouveau and Baroque buildings07-Aug-2009 17:17, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.008 sec, ISO 100	Streets of the Jewish Quarter View at Picasa Streets of the Jewish Quarter07-Aug-2009 17:15, SONY DSC-W55, 8.0, 7.2mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

I’m finally getting back to blogging about the rest of our trip. I’m not even halfway through, so there are several more posts to come. I ventured out on my own one afternoon, to Prague’s Jewish Quarter. It’s main attraction is the Jewish Museum, which actually consists of seven different sites, most of which are synagogues. According to Rick Steve in his Prague guidebook, it “is the most interesting collection of Jewish sites in Europe.” The Museum doesn’t allow taking pictures inside any of its buildings, so unfortunately I’m limited in what I can show you here. If you go to their web site’s Permanent Exhibitions page, and then follow the links for the different buildings, you can see some interior pictures.

Each site in the Museum has objects and historical accounts from different periods in the many centuries of Jewish history in the Czech region. For the most part it is a thoroughly depressing history – for any given period, it’s mainly a question of how severe their deprivations were. While there were a few periods when Jewish life flourished in Prague, in most times they endured rules such as limits on the number of children they could have (to “control” the Jewish population) and having to pay “tolerance” taxes (i.e. for their existence being tolerated). In the worst of times they were driven from their homes or slaughtered. The Nazi concentration camps were the horrific culmination of this history. The Nazis used Prague as a repository of treasures stolen from Jews throughout Europe. Prague’s Jews were among the last sent to the concentration camps, as they were first put to work organizing and archiving all the stolen valuables. All of this made me think of the offhand comments people often make about the Middle East, saying that people there are crazy and that they’ve been killing each other for centuries. European history isn’t all that different.

For most of their history, Prague’s Jews were banned from living anywhere but the Jewish quarter. For me the most moving site was the Jewish cemetery. Since they didn’t have any other land to bury the dead, over the centuries they piled graves upon graves. As the ground settled over time, the result was a densely packed, topsy-turvey field of tombstones. The Pinkas Synagogue’s display of artwork by some of the 15,000 children who lived in the Terezin Concentration Camp was also deeply moving (Terezin was not a death camp per se, but those who survived it were ultimately sent to their deaths at Auschwitz).

But amid the suffering, there was also amazing art, music, poetry, and culture. The museum brings all of this to life as well. The neighborhood is also home to the finest Art Nouveau buildings in Prague.