Historic Prague synagogue used for the first time since the Holocaust
in Prague was allowed to continue storing those objects, and the synagogue became part of the museum’s depository. After the war, there were not enough sur- vivors to refill services in the synagogues of Prague. The country became a Soviet sat- ellite in 1948, starting a long era in which Jews were often persecuted and surveilled for observing any religious practices. The last Soviet census of 1989 registered only 2,700 Jews living in Czech lands. “During Communist times, it was very diffi- cult to relate to Jewish identity,” Maxa says. “People who visited any kind of synagogue were followed by the secret police, and only after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 did it become possible for people to visit syna- gogues without the feeling of being followed and put on a list.” After the end of communist rule, some synagogues returned to use by the few who still identified as Jews. Two of the six synagogues that still stand in the Jewish Quarter now are in regular use as houses of worship. But the Klausen Synagogue, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1982, remained part of the Jewish Museum, hosting exhibitions about Jewish
SHIRA LI BARTOV / JTA
F or the first time since the Second World War, one of Prague’s most historic synagogues held a Jewish worship service— Kol Nidre, the introductory service of Yom Kippur—ending a hiatus that lasted more than 80 years and encompassed both the murder and suppression of Czech Jewry. Originally erected in 1573 and rebuilt after a fire in 1694, the Klausen Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Prague’s Jewish Quar- ter and once served as a central hub of Jew- ish life. It’s known as the home of several prominent rabbis and thinkers, from Judah Loew—a 16th-century Talmudic scholar also known as the Maharal of Prague—to Baruch Jeitteles, a scholar associated with the Jew- ish Enlightenment movement of the 18th and 19th centuries.
On Erev Yom Kippur, about 200 people poured in for a service led by Rabbi David Maxa, who represents Czechia’s community of Reform Jews. That community was joined by guests and Jewish tourists from around the world, according to Maxa. He saw the moment as a sign of Jewish life resurging in Prague, describing it as “quite remarkable that there is a Yom Kippur service in five his- toric synagogues in Prague.” Under German occupation in Second World War, the Klausen Synagogue was used as a storage facility. Although the Nazis and their collaborators killed about 263,000 Jews who lived in the former Czechoslovak Repub- lic, they took an interest in collecting Jewish art and artifacts that they deemed valuable enough to preserve. The Jewish Museum
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