The novel's plot passes through Josefov at several points. Maisel Street and the adjacent Široká Street serve as the setting for a number of scenes through which the figure of the Golem moves. The most significant location in the quarter is the Old Jewish Cemetery, to which the Golem repeatedly returns to the grave of Rabbi Löw in order to contemplate and draw on extraordinary strength. Brown handles the historical facts with remarkable precision, describing when the cemetery served the Jewish community and exploring the life and legacy of Judah ben Bezalel. Another Josefov landmark that appears in the novel is the Old-New Synagogue, to which the Golem returns to recall the chair where Rabbi Löw once sat.
Brown has stated that Prague's Jewish mysticism is for him inseparable from the city's overall spirit as a place of human consciousness and mysticism. In the novel, Josefov is therefore not merely a backdrop, but a location that carries both symbolic and narrative weight.
Josefov, the historic Jewish Town of Prague, is the smallest cadastral area in the city. It lies at the heart of the Old Town and today forms the best-preserved ensemble of Jewish monuments in all of Europe. Its history is a story of centuries of coexistence, persecution, prosperity, and tragedy experienced by one of the most significant Jewish communities on the continent.
Origins of Settlement
The earliest written record of a Jewish presence in Prague dates to 965, when the Arab-Jewish merchant Ibrahim ibn Yaqub described Prague as a trading centre where Jews played an active role. The Chronica Boemorum records Jewish settlement as early as 1091 along the so-called Vyšehrad Road, the main thoroughfare running through the Old Town and the future New Town. At the same time, a settlement existed on the left bank of the Vltava, roughly in the area of today's Mostecká Street in Malá Strana.
The territory of the future ghetto had probably been inhabited before the arrival of Jewish settlers, as an important trade route ran through it, connecting a ford across the Vltava near today's Mánes Bridge with a colony of German merchants at Poříčí. It is believed that the earliest Jewish settlement, made up of Jews arriving from the east — from Byzantium — grew up around a synagogue known as the Old School, on the site now occupied by the Spanish Synagogue. Only after the construction of the Judith Bridge around 1170, which shifted the main trade route further south, did the area of today's Josefov gain the space needed for the community to expand and put down deeper roots.
By the last quarter of the 13th century, when the Old-New Synagogue — one of the oldest Gothic buildings in Prague — was built, the community was firmly established. One of the curious features of the Prague ghetto is that its two parts, the eastern section around the Old School and the western section around the Old-New Synagogue, never merged into a single continuous district, but remained permanently separated by a small enclave of Christian houses centred on the Church of the Holy Spirit.
The Medieval Ghetto: Walls, Gates, and Pogroms
The medieval Jewish Town was separated from the surrounding Christian city by six gates. Its outer edges were not always strictly defined, however. The community repeatedly faced waves of anti-Jewish sentiment that erupted into pogroms with heavy loss of life and property in 1389, in 1422 during the Hussite uprising, and again in 1448.
The medieval Jewish cemetery had stood since 1254 on the territory of today's New Town, in the area of what later became Vladislavova Street. It was known as the Jewish Garden. It was closed under Vladislaus II of Bohemia in 1478, by which time two neighbouring Christian gardens had already been acquired and would become the foundation of the largely surviving Old Jewish Cemetery.
Expulsions under Ferdinand I and Maximilian II
The mid-16th century was a period of extreme turmoil. In 1541, Ferdinand I yielded to pressure from Old Town burghers who accused the Jews of financial fraud and ordered their expulsion from the country. The deadline for departure was repeatedly postponed, and wealthier families purchased letters of protection allowing them to remain in Prague, but most of the population had left within two years. Those who stayed were required to wear a visible mark of identification. In 1557 the letters of protection were revoked entirely and the whole community was expelled once more.
The Jews succeeded in extending the deadline step by step, and in 1567 secured from Maximilian II confirmation of their original privileges for all permanently resident families. New settlers of Jewish faith were, however, still barred from moving in.
The Golden Age: Rudolf II, Mordecai Maisel, and Rabbi Löw
After years of existential uncertainty, the reign of Rudolf II brought the greatest period of prosperity in the entire history of the ghetto. Rudolf II confirmed Jewish privileges in 1577 and the ghetto began to grow through the purchase of new houses and new construction within its boundaries. This era of building activity is inextricably linked with the name of Mordecai Maisel (1528–1601), the chief elder of the Jewish community and banker to Rudolf II.
Maisel was the wealthiest and most generous patron the ghetto had ever known. In 1564 he founded a Talmudic school, a synagogue — today known as the Klaus Synagogue — and a hospital with a bathhouse, all adjacent to the cemetery. In 1568 he contributed to the construction of the Jewish Town Hall and the associated High Synagogue. In 1591 he obtained a privilege to build his own private synagogue, today known as the Maisel Synagogue. At his own expense he had the streets of the ghetto paved and purchased a garden to extend the cemetery grounds.
The Rudolfine era is also inseparably associated with the figure of the legendary Rabbi Löw, whose full name was Judah Loew ben Bezalel (c. 1520–1609). Löw spent the second half of his long life in Prague, earning renown as the greatest Talmudic scholar of his day. He also engaged with the natural sciences, astronomy, and astrology. It is to him that Prague's most famous legend attributes the creation of an artificial being called the Golem, said to have protected the ghetto's inhabitants from attack. No historical evidence confirms a personal meeting between Löw and Rudolf II, yet his tombstone in the Old Jewish Cemetery remains one of the most sought-out destinations in all of Josefov.
Maisel's successor at the court of Rudolf II was the wealthy merchant Jacob Bassevi (1580–1634). After the defeat of the Bohemian Revolt in 1620, he bought up houses cheaply from exiles and enlarged the ghetto by nearly four dozen additional properties. Bassevi became the first Jew in the entire Habsburg Monarchy to be elevated to the nobility, with the predicate von Treuenberg.
Overcrowding, Plague, and Destruction by Fire
The second half of the 17th century brought a large influx of new inhabitants, particularly following the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1670. With more than 11,000 residents, the Prague ghetto became one of the most densely populated Jewish communities in contemporary Europe. Overcrowding, however, had catastrophic consequences. In 1680 a plague epidemic devastated the ghetto. It was at this time that the Old Jewish Cemetery on Žižkov, on today's Fibichova Street, was established as a burial ground for the plague victims. Burials continued there during a further epidemic in the early 18th century and regularly until 1890, when a ban on burial within the city came into force. In total, some 40,000 people were buried there, among them many distinguished rabbis and scholars.
Only nine years after the plague epidemic, in June 1689, a major fire broke out in Kaprová Street in the Old Town and swept through the entire Jewish Town, destroying all 318 of its houses. There was serious debate about whether to rebuild the ghetto at all, or to relocate its inhabitants to the outskirts of Prague. Permission to rebuild was eventually granted on condition that the streets be straight and widened and that all new houses be built of stone. For practical reasons, however, the new buildings rose on the same footprints as before, since the solid stone houses that had survived the fire were too valuable to demolish. Reconstruction was substantially complete by around 1703 and the population once again exceeded 11,000.
Census, Restrictions, and Maria Theresa
In 1729 a detailed census of the ghetto was carried out. It recorded 333 residential buildings housing 2,335 families, along with some three dozen public buildings. At the same time, a restriction was in force prohibiting any but firstborn sons from establishing families, since the total number of Jewish families permitted in the country was fixed and could not be exceeded.
In December 1744, under the reign of Maria Theresa, another attempt at a radical solution was made. The pretext was an alleged collaboration between the Jews and the enemy during the Prussian occupation of Prague that autumn. By mid-1745 all inhabitants of the ghetto had been required to leave Prague. Some settled in nearby Libeň and surrounding villages, where they waited until 1748, when the expulsion order was revoked. The ghetto houses, empty for two years, were found by their owners to have been ransacked and looted. No sooner had repairs been completed than another devastating fire broke out in 1754, again destroying 190 houses, together with synagogues, the town hall, and the hospital.
The Josephine Reforms and the Name Josefov
A fundamental change was brought about by the enlightened reign of Joseph II. Through the Edict of Toleration and a series of further decrees, Jews were granted access to public schools and universities, were permitted to acquire property outside the ghetto, to learn trades freely, and to engage in commerce. Many of the barriers separating the Jewish population from the Christian majority were removed: Jews no longer had to wear a visible mark of identification and were free to move anywhere in Prague. A gradual departure of wealthier families followed, accelerating throughout the 19th century.
The year 1848 brought full civic emancipation to the Jews. Two years later, in 1850, the former ghetto was officially incorporated into Prague under the new name Josefov, in honour of Joseph II, and designated as the city's fifth district. By that time, the former ghetto was home predominantly to poorer or strictly Orthodox families. According to the statistics of 1880, the number of Jews in Josefov had fallen to just one third or one quarter of its earlier level.
Clearance at the Turn of the 20th Century
In the final quarter of the 19th century, the overcrowded and neglected Josefov was visibly deteriorating. The buildings were unmaintained, sanitation was at its most primitive, and the quarter's low-lying position close to the river caused regular flooding and damp cellars. Statistics confirmed above-average rates of illness and mortality. Following the example of other European cities, the Prague municipality decided in the 1880s on the most radical course of action: clearance through the demolition of all the old buildings.
The original Jewish Town was condemned to demolition in the late 1880s as a slum district unfit for habitation. Reconstruction proceeded from approximately 1893 and resulted in the demolition of the great majority of the original fabric. In its place rose prestigious apartment buildings in the Art Nouveau and historicist styles. Only a handful of the most significant buildings survived: the Old-New Synagogue, the Jewish Town Hall, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and the Klaus, Maisel, Pinkas, Spanish, and High Synagogues. In the basement of a building adjoining the Pinkas Synagogue, a historic mikveh — a ritual bath most likely dating from the early 16th century — was discovered during an archaeological survey in 1968, and stands as one of the oldest material remains of Jewish settlement in the area. In 1890, when the Old Jewish Cemetery on Žižkov was no longer in use, the New Jewish Cemetery was established on Izraelská Street in Žižkov; it remains the only cemetery in Prague where Jewish burials still take place today. Among those buried there is the writer Franz Kafka.
The Second World War and the Holocaust
The darkest chapter in the history of Josefov was the Second World War. Following the Nazi occupation in 1939, Prague's Jews were systematically stripped of their rights and property and gradually deported to concentration and extermination camps. The emptied Josefov became a warehouse for confiscated belongings. After the war, a vast quantity of these possessions remained in the care of the Jewish Museum, since their original owners had been murdered in the camps and there was no one left to reclaim them. As a result, the Jewish Museum in Prague became the second largest Jewish museum in the world.
Josefov Today
Today Josefov is one of the most visited places in Prague and at the same time a living centre of the city's Jewish community. Its monuments are administered by the Jewish Community of Prague and the Jewish Museum, which encompasses the Old-New Synagogue, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and the Pinkas, Klaus, Maisel, and Spanish Synagogues. The Pinkas Synagogue serves as a memorial to nearly 80,000 Bohemian and Moravian Jews murdered during the Holocaust, whose names are inscribed on its walls. Beyond the traditional Josefov circuit, the Jerusalem Synagogue on Jeruzalémská Street is also well worth a visit — a remarkable example of Art Nouveau stylisation of Moorish architecture, built at the turn of the 20th century, which today houses permanent exhibitions on the post-war history of the Prague Jewish Community.
Josefov is today not only a tourist landmark but also a place of living memory. It preserves more than a thousand years of the story of a community that profoundly shaped the cultural, intellectual, and economic life of Prague, and serves as a reminder of how fine the line can be between flourishing and devastation.