By Samuel D. Gruber with Diane Wolfthal
Description
The Old Jewish Cemetery is the second oldest Jewish burial ground in Prague and one of the oldest and best-preserved Jewish cemeteries in the world. It is distinctive for its thousands of inscribed and decorated tombstones that are crowded into a small urban space on the edge of the former Prague Ghetto. Since the 19th century, the cemetery has been recognized and much visited as an historic and artistic site and it has often been represented in art. Consequently, most of the site was spared during the demolition and rebuilding of the area of the Jewish Ghetto in the early 20th century.
Founded around 1430, the cemetery was enlarged several times during the 16th and 17th centuries and received new burials until 1787. It was reduced in size in 1903 during the urban renewal of Josefov (the area of the former Ghetto). Due to the lack of space already early in its history, existing graves were covered with earth to allow new burials on top, resulting in many layers of burials, in some places up to twelve layers of graves. When graves were covered, the stones were often raised to the surface level, creating an even-increasing jumble of stones of different eras. Today, there are about 12,000 visible tombstones in the cemetery, but the number of individuals buried is much higher, and many old stones are also certainly buried out of sight. Some tombstones have sunk into the ground, others were left in lower levels, and still others, especially some made of wood, have been destroyed. Stylistically, the stones date from the late Gothic to the Rococo and present a wide range of carving, epigraphic and decorative styles. Several ark-shaped tombs from the 17th and 18th centuries are especially noteworthy.
Significance
The oldest known cemetery in Prague was probably founded in the 11th century in the Mala Strana district on the west side of the Vltava River. No traces remain. The second cemetery, in the district Nove Miasto around today's Vladislavova street, existed in the 13th - 14th centuries, and was closed after 1477. Fragments of its tombstones were transferred in the 19th century to the cemetery in Josefov. In 1998 the site was excavated during the construction of a large new building; after protests and negotiations, and to honor Jewish law and tradition, some remains were preserved in situ in 2000.
The extant Old Cemetery was founded by the beginning of the 15th century at the western edge of what was then the ghetto; it served as the main burial ground of the Prague Jewish community for some 350 years. Despite frequent expansions, it was soon unable to cope with the needs of the Jewish community. Jewish custom forbids the disturbance of graves, so Jews rarely, if ever, willingly move bodies from their original burial place. To allow more burials in the restricted locale, earth was piled above old graves for new layers of burials. Jewish law requires that individual graves should be separated by a layer of earth measuring at least six handbreadths, and this regulation was followed scrupulously. Some old tombstones were laid above the burial and covered up; others were instead reset on the new surface level.
The cemetery is celebrated for the artistry of its tombstones, the literary and linguistic value of many of their lengthy inscriptions, and the number of famous Jews whose graves remain places of pilgrimage. The stones are an encyclopedia of Bohemian funerary motifs, inscriptions, decorative patterns, symbols, and epigraphy over three centuries of Jewish life in Central Europe. Known gravestones include those of scholar and poet Avigdor Karo (d. 1439); rabbi, philosopher, and teacher Yehudah ben Bezalel Low (about 1525–1609); astronomer and mathematician David Gans (1541–1613); astronomer and physician Joseph Delmedigo (1591–1655); and Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664–1736), whose book collection Oxford University purchased.
Near the East front of the Klaus synagogue, which abuts the cemetery, is an elevation called Nefele where children who had died before the age of one month were buried. In 1903, remains from the demolished parts of the cemetery were interred here and a three-dimensional tombstone commemorating those buried here was erected. Tombstone fragments from an older cemetery on Vladislavova street were embedded in the wall near the Nefele elevation. (The earliest dates from the mid-14th century.) Restoration work has been ongoing since 1946. The Jewish Museum of Prague administers the cemetery, which is open to visitors.
A publication of the Jewish Museum of Prague, based on documents, concludes: "The first written reference to the cemetery mentions that, in 1440, the Jewish Elders purchased an old house with a building lot opposite a brothel, next to the Jewish Garden where the dead are now buried. The next extension of the cemetery occurred in 1526, when Jewish wardens purchased a garden for the burial of the dead, lying alongside their first garden where they have burials. A separate, enclosed burial ground, in the vicinity of the Pinkas Synagogue, also emerged sometime in the first half of the sixteenth century; this is clearly indicated on a map dating from the mid seventeenth century. In 1573 wardens of Jewish schools and hospitals purchased a house with a garden lying towards the riverbank, this evidently became the basis for a separate cemetery. In 1598 Primas Mordecai Maisel purchased a house with a garden, which extended the central part of the existing cemetery towards the west. The cemetery was again extended in 1630, although the two main sections (east and north-west) were not connected until the end of the seventeenth century. The last extension occurred in 1768 with the purchase of land on the south- west edge of the cemetery, although burials no longer took place here. In the end, the Old Jewish Cemetery covered an area of 11,290 nr, almost an eighth of the overall size of the former Jewish Town of Prague.” (Pařik et al, Prague Jewish Cemeteries, p. 23.)
Further Reading
Ehl, P.; Parik, A.; and Fiedler, J. Old Bohemian and Moravian Cemeteries. Prague: Paseka, 1991.
Lion, Jindrich, and Jan Lukas. The Old Prague Jewish Cemetery. Artia, Prague: Artia, 1960.
Pařik, Arno. "The Ghetto of Prague." In Where Cultures Meet: The Story of the Jews of Czechoslovakia, edited by Natalia Berger. Tel Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth. The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, Ministry of Defense Publishing House, 1990.
Pařik, Arno, Vlastimila Hamáčková, Dana Cabanová, and Petr Kliment. Prague Jewish Cemeteries. Prague: Jewish Museum of Prague, 2003.
Polakovic, Daniel. “Documentation of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.” Judaica Bohemiae 43 (2007-2008): 167–192.
Vilimkova, Milada. The Prague Ghetto. Prague: Aventinum, 1993.
