The most beautiful synagogues to visit Czech Republic

It is the most "spectacular" and the most recent synagogue in the neighborhood, quite far from the previous ones. In the past centuries, the neighborhood had two parts separated by a Catholic church. One was inhabited by Jews of the Western Rite who gathered around the Vieille-Nouvelle synagogue. The Jews of the Eastern Rite lived around the Spanish Synagogue. However, it was the Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition and settled in Prague who gave the synagogue its name in the early 16th century. There was already a synagogue on this site in the 12th century, called Stará Škola (Old School). It was damaged and burned down several times, but in 1836 it was rebuilt and an organ was installed. The first person to play this instrument was Vladimír Škroup, composer of the song Kde Domov Můj, the anthem of the Czech Republic. Today, after more than twenty years of restoration, it is a majestic building in neo-Moorish style, whose interior is decorated with golden oriental stucco, the imitation of the Spanish interiors of the Alhambra in Granada. The synagogue also houses the fascinating exhibition dedicated to the history of Bohemian Jews, which has benefited from the renovation work to become even more interactive. It traces the life of the Jewish community from the creation of the district by Joseph II until after the Second World War. Exciting and terrible pages of history!

It was built by Marc Mordechai Maisel, primate of the Jewish community, between 1590 and 1592 after receiving the approval of Rudolph II. In 1689, a fire destroyed the area and the old synagogue was rebuilt. Its current appearance dates from between 1893 and 1905, in the neo-Gothic style. Then it was transformed by the Nazis into a warehouse for furniture from the spoliations of deportees' apartments. The exhibition The History of the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia in the 20th and 18th centuries has been installed here (another part of the exhibition is in the Spanish synagogue). We get to know the Jewish population and the historical data on this territory, the legal and social situation of their ancestors. You can learn interesting things about Jewish wisdom and some of their representatives from the Renaissance period.

In the display cases there are many tin and silver objects classified by theme, you will see crowns that decorated the Torah scrolls or small artificial hands that helped to follow the text. Most of these objects were stored by the Nazis in order to open a kind of giant Jewish museum in Prague.

Maiselova Street presents a succession of buildings, mostly Secession, which punctuate the space in beautiful verticals. Particular attention should be paid to numbers 3, 5, 7, 9 and 21, the latter being the work of architects F. Weyr and R. Klenka (1911).

This impressive synagogue does not go unnoticed with its neo-Moorish style and varied colors. The interior is just as striking and well worth a visit. This synagogue, sometimes referred to as Velká Synagoga (Great Synagogue), is Prague's newest and was built at the beginning of the ^20th century. Inside, note the organs, signed by the Czech Emanuel Štěpán, and the division of the space into two levels, one strictly reserved for women, the other for men.

An ancient synagogue existed here as early as the ^11th century, between the old Jewish cemetery and the Horowitz house. The Pinkas synagogue was founded by Rabbi Pinkas in 1479 and enlarged by Aaron Meshulam Horowitz, a member of his family, in 1535. In the ^17th century, a gallery was added for women, quite different from the one seen in the Vieille-Nouvelle synagogue. This one is a balcony, much more spacious and open to the central nave. Successive floods were the main reason for frequent rebuilding. This synagogue is nicknamed "The Monument of 80,000 Victims", and commemorates all Czech and Moravian Jews who died during the Holocaust. The names of 77,297 people (men, women and children) are inscribed on all walls, along with their precise dates of birth and death, compiled from Nazi archives. The names were erased by damp during the Communist period, but the lists were found and the walls re-engraved after independence. On one wall, the names of the concentration camps are written, one below the other. But this is not the most moving testimony. The second floor is devoted to the drawings of the children of Terezín, created between 1942 and 1944. They were painted by the little ones and kept in a suitcase thanks to their teacher. The colors, subjects and dates weigh heavily on the hearts of everyone who has passed through this synagogue.

This synagogue is the oldest in Europe. Built in 1270, in Gothic style, it has a simple and bare volume, with two brick gables that hide a very steep roof. Its entrance, excavated, corresponds to the old street level. Its strange name is due to history. It was originally called New, but another one by that name was born right next door, hence the change to the Old-New Synagogue. It survived all the disasters of the Jewish city, fires, floods, and the sanitation of the district at the end of the 19th century. We go down a few narrow steps into a first room with 17th century crates that were used to keep the money collected by the tax authorities. The synagogue is composed of two naves separated by two pillars. In the middle, the pulpit raised with a wrought iron gate in flamboyant 15th century Gothic. Notice the strange small narrow windows in the walls, which separate the main hall (17th and 18th centuries) from the women's galleries. Not being allowed to attend the ceremonies alongside the men, they followed the cult through these tiny slits. Banner, symbol of the independence of the Jewish community at the beginning of the 14th century, is one of the objects that attract attention. She wears a star of David with a hat in the middle, an accessory whose wearing was made mandatory for the inhabitants of the district in the 14th century.

It is here (Klausová synagoga) that Rabbi Löw, the famous father of the Golem, allegorical and protective figure of the Jewish quarter, which he is said to have shaped with his hands from the land of the banks of the Vltava before having to make it disappear because of the damage he caused, gave his teaching. In Baroque style, it houses the National Jewish Museum, which provides access to ancient Hebrew manuscripts. You can also consult documents from the ghetto before the major works of 1896. Its name comes from the word klausy, which meant the place that served as a school. The synagogue was built in Baroque style in 1680, on the site of three small synagogues, one of which housed Rabbi Löw's famous school. Today, inside, there is the collection Les traditions et les coutumes juives. The different stages of life (birth, circumcision, bar mitzvah, marriage, death...), Jewish holidays, their meaning and course are clearly explained through manuscripts and objects used on occasion, presented in display cases. A very beautiful insight into Jewish religious culture. You will see a large number of candlesticks, silverware, textiles and decorative objects. Across the street, in the narrow rooms and staircases of the Ceremony Hall (Obřadní Sněm), there will be an exhibition on death and its customs, illness and medicine. It describes medicine in the ghetto and Jewish cemeteries in Bohemia and Moravia.

At 45 meters high, it is the largest synagogue in the country, the second largest in Europe and the third largest in the world! The basic plan was rejected, because with its twin 65-meter high towers, which made it visible from a large part of the city, it was feared that they would "overshadow" the tower of St. Bartholomew's Cathedral. The foundation stone laid in 1888 was therefore left alone for some time, while the new architect designed a new plan mixing Oriental, Moorish, Hindu and Russian Orthodox styles. Above all, towers reduced by 20 m explain the current size of the synagogue. In the end, the visitor is a little confused and does not know what to expect, because the facade evokes, apart from the symbolism linked to the Jewish cult, Bohemian or Russian Orthodox churches. The surprise continues in the interior, where Hindu influences are very clearly expressed with the sculptures of the holy ark.

During the war, the synagogue served as a military depot for the Nazis, before returning to worship with the return of the few survivors of the camps. Due to lack of funds, it was closed and abandoned in 1973 and its condition deteriorated for a quarter of a century before undergoing a first restoration at the end of the 20th century. This second restoration between 2018 and 2022 gave it back all its former glory. Far too large for the few members of the Jewish community of Plzeň, it is called to host concerts and exhibitions.