Old Klaus Synagogue, Prague

La comunità ebraica

Prague's Jewish community was one of the largest and most important in Central Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it lived under severe restrictions. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that for a time only fifteen Jewish families were allowed to remain in the city, until 1543, and that the ghetto held about 2,000 Jews in 1652. The later sixteenth century, under the emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II, was a period of relative security and building. Mordechai Maisel, born in Prague in 1528 and died there in 1601, became one of the first court Jews of the region, held a position at Rudolf II's court and paid for several communal buildings, including the Jewish Town Hall, the High Synagogue and the Maisel Synagogue. Before the 1689 fire, the ghetto had twelve synagogues according to the Jüdische Gemeinden survey; the Jewish Encyclopedia speaks of ten massive synagogues destroyed in that fire. The klausen were among the smaller places of prayer and study in this dense quarter, sited by the cemetery on land Maisel had acquired.

Architettura e design

Almost nothing is recorded about the building. The sources consulted call the klausen small buildings and give no dimensions, materials, plan or description of the interior, and no drawing, engraving or plan showing the synagogue before 1689 has been found. The architect or builder is unknown, as is the seating capacity. The location is known: the complex stood at the edge of the Old Jewish Cemetery, next to its entrance, on the plot now occupied by the Klausen Synagogue of 1694. Arno Pařík, as summarised on English Wikipedia, describes Maisel's project as a kloyz, a complex of buildings probably including synagogues, and German Wikipedia counts two synagogues within it. Whether the building was a free-standing hall or a room within a larger house, and what style it had, cannot be said from the sources read. It belongs to the period of Maisel's other foundations, the High Synagogue and the Maisel Synagogue, but no source describes its own form.

La vita nella sinagoga

The klausen were above all places of study. The Jewish Museum in Prague states that the buildings on the site included a yeshiva, a Talmudic school, founded by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal, who settled in Prague in 1573 and died there in 1609. English Wikipedia, citing Pařík, says Maisel built the complex in the 1570s and that the Maharal taught at its school. The synagogue of the complex served those who studied and worshipped there, and its congregation had its own rabbi: English Wikipedia names Rabbi Shelomo Khalish Cohen as rabbi of the burned synagogue, and it was he who led the building of its successor after 1689. No account of services, cantors, membership or customs specific to this synagogue before the fire was found. The Jewish Encyclopedia's description of the Klaus as the finest and largest synagogue in the ghetto, built in memory of the visit of Maximilian II and his wife Maria in 1571, may refer to the later building or conflate the two, and is not confirmed by the other sources.

Distruzione

On 21 June 1689 a great fire swept through Prague's Jewish Town. The Jewish Encyclopedia states that French incendiaries started the fire near the church of St Valentine, that the flames spread over the entire ghetto within two hours, and that the ten massive synagogues of the quarter were either burned to shells or reduced to ashes. the Jüdische Gemeinden survey describes the fire as destroying almost the whole Jewish Town. All the sources that mention the klausen agree that they burned in this fire; the Jewish Heritage Europe guide says that all three buildings were destroyed, and Pařík, as summarised on English Wikipedia, says the fire burned down all of the klausen. The synagogue was not rebuilt in its old form. When the ghetto was reconstructed, partly with gifts from Jews abroad, the authorities allowed only six of the former twelve synagogues to be rebuilt. Who actually set the fire is not recorded in the sources read beyond the Jewish Encyclopedia's attribution to French arsonists.

Il destino della comunità

The congregation of the burned synagogue survived the fire and rebuilt on the same plot. Its rabbi, Shelomo Khalish Cohen, initiated a new synagogue in the early Baroque style, finished in 1694; Samuel Oppenheimer paid for its Torah ark two years later. The new building took the name Klausen Synagogue from the vanished complex and became the second most important synagogue of the Prague community. In 1741 Bavarian and Saxon troops demanded that it be turned into a granary, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. It was renovated and enlarged by the architect Bedřich Münzberger in 1883. It survived the clearance of the old Jewish Town and is now part of the Jewish Museum in Prague, which uses it for an exhibition on Jewish customs and traditions. What became of individual members of the sixteenth-century congregation is not recorded in the sources read.

Il luogo oggi

The site of the old Klaus synagogue is occupied by the present Klausen Synagogue of 1694, at U Starého hřbitova in Josefov, directly beside the entrance to the Old Jewish Cemetery. the Jüdische Gemeinden survey states that the new synagogue was built on the same spot after the fire, and the Jewish Heritage Europe guide says it occupies the place of the klausen. No visible remains of the sixteenth-century buildings are recorded, and no archaeological investigation of them was found. The building is open to visitors as part of the Jewish Museum in Prague. The map pin marks the present Klausen Synagogue and so the approximate site of the earlier complex; the exact footprint of the first synagogue within that plot is unknown.

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