Starý židovský hřbitov v Praze-Josefově Cemetery

The old Jewish cemetery lies in the heart of the former Prague ghetto, in today's neighborhood Praha 1-Josefov. He was preceded by another cemetery called the Jewish Garden, which was located near the Vysehrad Road in the New Town of Prague. It was in operation until 1478 when, at the urgent request of the townspeople, the Czech king Vladislav II cancelled it. The exact date of the creation of the Old Jewish cemetery, which replaced the extinct burial ground, is not yet clearly documented.

The oldest preserved tombstone belongs to the Prague rabbi and poet Avigdor Kara and dates back to 1439. He was the one who wrote the Elements of all the tragedy of 1389, when in the pogrom in the Prague Ghetto the looting mob ravaged the existing cemetery, smashing up tombstones and digging up the dead - an event that Alois Jirásek also processed in the second piece of Trilogy between the currents. It is assumed that the Old Jewish cemetery was not yet standing at the time of this pogrom. The continuous series of graves then continues from the first half of the 15th century until 1787, when the last grave was dug for Moses Lipman Beck. The burial then stopped the enlightenment order of Josef II, published for health reasons three years before.

The cemetery was situated on the highest hill of the Jewish city at an altitude of 192 metres. The first written mention of it dates back to 1440, when the property was purchased from the brewery Hanuš. The largest expansion occurred in the 16th century, partly due to Mordechai Maisel. Since the first half of the same century, there have been two separate burial sites in the ghetto that only merged in the late 17th century. The last area for actual burial was obtained in 1630, and the last extension of the cemetery grounds dates back to November 10, 1768.

The extraordinary form of the cemetery was influenced by the Jewish burial tradition - halacha forbids to disturb graves and remove tombstones. Therefore, due to lack of space, layers of clay were attached to older graves and buried in them again; According to some researchers, up to ten burial layers were created above them. The tombstones have sometimes been removed and planted back on the newly created surface, which explains their characteristic build-up close together.

In the cemetery are buried the leading figures of the Prague Jewish community: Jehuda Liva ben Becalel called Rabi Löw (died 1609), Mordechaj Maisel (1601), David Gans (1613) and David Oppenheimer (1736).

At the time of the reign of František I there were proposals for the partial abolition of the cemetery, but they were mainly reflected by the categorical resistance of the Archbishop Václav Leopold Chlumčansky. However, there was a reduction in cemetery areas during the rendering of Old Town and Josef after 1903. After the closure of the cemetery in 1787, the Prague Jewish community switched to the originally pestilence cemetery in Žižkov, operated in 1680-1890, whose remains are now partly under the Žižkov TV tower. Since 1890, there has been a new cemetery in the area of Olšansky cemeteries.

Today the Old Jewish Cemetery is managed by the Jewish Museum in Prague. For a visitor who comes here, the cemetery is a silent reminder of the centuries-long presence of the Jewish community in Prague, as well as the extraordinary way in which this community dealt with limited space and commitment to its dead.