Old Synagogue of Libeň, Prague

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Die Geschichte von Old Synagogue of Libeň, Prague

Libeň, a separate town on the north-eastern edge of Prague until 1901, had the second most important Jewish settlement in the area of present-day Prague after Josefov. Jews probably settled there in the first half of the sixteenth century, after expulsions from the royal towns in 1541 and 1557, and the quarter grew in the eighteenth century when Maria Theresa expelled the Jews from Prague. Its old synagogue, dated to 1592, stood at the very centre of the quarter in Koželužská Street, the tanners' street close to the river. It was a small building that served for nearly two centuries before it was rebuilt in 1770. The site was in the part of Libeň worst hit by floods, and the floods that struck the town again and again gradually made the synagogue unfit for use. After a severe flood in 1845 its demolition was considered, and on 23 November 1846 the foundation stone of a new synagogue was laid on higher ground in what is now Ludmilina Street; that building was consecrated twelve years later and still stands. The old synagogue was pulled down at some date before 1900, according to Jiří Fiedler's gazetteer of Jewish monuments. No picture of it has been found.

STANDORT

Where it stood for 308 years

Historic: Koželužská ulice, Jewish quarter of Libeň (Lieben), then a separate town near Prague; house number unknown. Today: Koželužská, Palmovka, 180 00 Praha 8. Approximate: street only.

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Die jüdische Gemeinde

The Jews of Libeň had a synagogue and a cemetery by the end of the sixteenth century, and later also a building for their self-government. Settlement probably began in the first half of the sixteenth century, after the expulsions of Jews from the Bohemian royal towns in 1541 and 1557, when Libeň, then a small town outside Prague, offered refuge. The quarter grew considerably in the eighteenth century when Maria Theresa expelled the Jews from Prague, and at times Jews outnumbered Christians in Lower Libeň. The quarter lay in a knot of winding lanes between several streets, some of which no longer exist, with courtyard houses whose flats were on the first floor because of the frequent floods. The old cemetery, south of the quarter and linked to it by Vojenova Street, was founded around the end of the sixteenth century, enlarged several times and used until the 1890s; a new cemetery opened in 1892. Bedřich Nosek's 1980 study of the community from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century covers its origins, occupations, legal status, administration and synagogue, but its full text could not be read for this entry.

Architektur und Gestaltung

Almost nothing is recorded about the building's appearance. One account calls the synagogue of 1592 small, and the Prague 8 district history says that after two centuries of use it was rebuilt in 1770, so the building that was finally demolished was presumably the eighteenth-century reconstruction rather than the original sixteenth-century hall. Its architect, builder, style, size and seating capacity are unknown, and no plan, drawing or photograph of it has been found. What the sources do describe is its setting: it stood in the middle of the Jewish quarter in Koželužská Street, the street of the tanners, in the low-lying part of Libeň close to the river that suffered most from floods. The houses around it were built with their living rooms on the upper floor for the same reason. This position was the building's undoing, because repeated inundation damaged it until it was no longer usable.

Leben in der Synagoge

For more than two and a half centuries this was the main house of prayer of the Libeň Jewish community, which ranked second only to the Prague Jewish Town among the Jewish settlements within the present city boundaries. The sources found give no names of rabbis, cantors or wardens who served in it, and nothing is recorded about its furnishings, its ark or the order of worship. Around it stood the institutions of the community: a building with the rabbi's residence and the communal offices, and the cemetery near the later Libeň Bridge. The synagogue went on serving the congregation through the floods of the first half of the nineteenth century, until the severe flood of 1845 led the community to plan a new building. Worship presumably moved to the new synagogue when it was consecrated about 1858, but the sources do not say exactly when services in the old one ceased.

Zerstörung

The old synagogue was not destroyed by violence. Its downfall was the river. Libeň was flooded again and again, and the synagogue stood in the area most exposed to high water, so that the floods gradually made it unsuitable for worship. After the especially severe flood of 1845 its demolition was first proposed, and the community built a replacement on safer ground between 1846 and 1858. The old building was then given up. Jiří Fiedler's gazetteer of Jewish monuments in Bohemia and Moravia records only that it was demolished before 1900; no source found gives the exact year, says who carried out the demolition, or says whether the building was sold first. The surrounding Jewish quarter in Koželužská Street survived in part into the twentieth century, and Fiedler still described a remnant of the ghetto there.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

The community kept its new synagogue in use until the Second World War. Under the Nazi German occupation the Jews of Libeň were gradually deported by the Nazis to concentration camps, and in 1941 the new synagogue was closed and turned into a warehouse for confiscated Jewish property. The number of Libeň Jews who were murdered is unknown from the sources read. After the war the decimated community was never revived in Libeň. The old cemetery was finally wiped out around 1965, under Communist rule: its remaining gravestones, including valuable Baroque and Neoclassical stelae, were knocked over and buried. In the 1980s the blocks around Palmovka were demolished for the metro station, together with the building that had housed the rabbi's residence and the community offices. The new synagogue was returned to the Jewish Community of Prague after 1989.

Der Ort heute

The site of the old synagogue lies in Koželužská Street at Palmovka in Prague 8, an area largely cleared in the 1980s for the Palmovka metro station and its surroundings. One older house survives in the street, with the administrative building of the construction firm Metrostav behind it; the exact plot of the synagogue has not been identified, so the map pin marks the street only. Nothing of the building is known to survive. The New Synagogue of 1846-58 still stands a short distance away in Ludmilina Street and is used for cultural events. Part of the enclosure wall of the old Jewish cemetery also survives to the south.

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