History
The Old Jewish Cemetery is one of the oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds in Europe. In Hebrew it is called beit chaim, the house of life, for according to Jewish belief everything truly begins only with death. It was founded in the first half of the 15th century and, together with the Old New Synagogue, forms the most precious surviving core of Prague's Jewish Town. Burials continued here until 1787, when Emperor Joseph II prohibited interment within the city walls. Because the ghetto's confined space — which Jews were not permitted to extend — left no room for expansion, the dead were buried in layers one above another, up to ten according to some researchers. In an area of approximately 11,000 square metres, around 40,000 sets of remains thus lie at rest, and more than 12,000 gravestones still stand here today.
The oldest surviving gravestone dates from 1439 and belongs to the scholar and poet Avigdor Kara. The most significant figure buried in the cemetery is the great religious scholar and educator Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as Rabbi Löw, who died in 1609 and whose name is inseparably linked with the legend of the creation of the Golem. His Renaissance tomb remains a place of pilgrimage to this day, where visitors place slips of paper bearing their wishes and prayers. Among the other notable burials are Mordecai Maisel, primator of the Jewish Town; the Renaissance scholar, historian and astronomer David Gans, friend of Tycho Brahe and Kepler; and Rabbi David Oppenheim, whose extensive library of Hebrew manuscripts is today held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Gravestones and Their Symbolism
The gravestones are a living chronicle of the centuries: the oldest, from the 15th and 16th centuries, are of dark sandstone with deeply incised Hebrew inscriptions, while Baroque and early modern examples use white and reddish-brown marble with richer decoration. Around the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, relief symbols of family lineage, names, rank and occupation began to appear on the stones. Prague is the only place in Europe where the Baroque symbol of the four-sided tomb in the form of a small house has survived in any significant number. A crown signifies wisdom, bunches of grapes and pomegranates abundance, a charity box generosity. Blessing hands belong to descendants of the Temple priests, a ewer and basin to descendants of the Levites. Tools reveal occupations: a mortar identifies an apothecary, scissors a tailor, a violin a musician.
Animal motifs form a special group, hinting at the name of the deceased: a lion refers to the name Löw, a deer to Hirsch, a wolf to Wolf, a bear to Baer, a goose to Gans, a rooster to Hahn and a fish to Fischel. On the graves of young women appear delicate female figures; mythical creatures such as a winged lion or a griffin serve a protective purpose. At the end of many Hebrew inscriptions stand the five letters of an abbreviation expressing the wish: May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life. On Rabbi Löw's gravestone, as on many others, small stones are placed as a sign of respect and remembrance — a tradition rooted in Old Testament stories of journeying through the desert.
Practical Information
The Old Jewish Cemetery forms part of the visitor circuit of the Prague Jewish Museum. Admission is possible only with a valid museum ticket. The cemetery lies in Josefov; the entrance is at Široká Street No. 3. The standard admission to the full Prague Jewish Museum circuit is 600 CZK, the reduced rate 400 CZK. Opening hours vary by season: in the summer months from 9:00 to 19:00, in winter until 16:30. The cemetery is closed on Saturdays. Partial wheelchair access is available via the entrance at the Klaus Synagogue. Further information and ticket reservations at www.jewishmuseum.cz.