Old Synagogue of Třešť

The Jewish community

The Jewish Encyclopedia holds that the Třešť community was probably founded by Jews expelled from Jihlava shortly after 1426, and a Rabbi Isaac of Triesch is mentioned in 1469. Records become continuous only in the second half of the seventeenth century, when about eight Jewish families lived in the town and made their living from the wool and cloth trade, the sale of spirits and the making of potash. The community grew quickly in the eighteenth century. Under the Familiants Laws 102 Jewish families were permitted in 1789, with about twenty more living in the town, and under Joseph II the Jewish register of the Třešť estate listed about 120 families. Around 1800 Jews made up almost a fifth of the population. The community was at its height in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the last years of the old synagogue: Hugo Gold counted 750 Jews in 1830 and 621 in 1848, about fourteen per cent of the inhabitants. Wool was sold to the cloth-makers of Jihlava, and later Jewish manufacturers of cloth, furniture and matches led the town's industrial growth.

Architecture and design

No description, plan or picture of the synagogue that burned in the 1820s has been found in the sources read. Its date of construction is unknown; a regional tourism page states plainly that the exact time it was built is not known. A Jewish prayer house is documented in Třešť in 1693, but no source read says whether that was the same building or an earlier one, or whether it was a purpose-built synagogue rather than a room in a house. The same page places the town's synagogue in the southern part of the Jewish quarter, which was enclosed by a low wall with three gates; it is not clear whether this refers to the old building, its replacement, or both standing on one plot. The Jüdische Gemeinden website calls it simply the synagogue, burned together with the whole ghetto. The architect, the builder, the materials, the seating capacity and the arrangement of the interior are all unknown.

Life inside the synagogue

In the decades before the fire the synagogue was the centre of a congregation of real scholarly standing. Rabbi Eleazar Löw, author of the commentary Shemen Rokeach, came to Třešť in 1800 and founded a yeshiva that, according to German Wikipedia, had between 100 and 200 students. He left about 1810 or 1812 for the district rabbinate of Pilsen and Klattau, based at Poběžovice, but the congregation, unable to find a successor, called him back, and he served again until about 1820 or 1821, when he moved to Liptovský Mikuláš. The Jewish Encyclopedia names among the town's rabbis the Kabbalist Mordecai Bet ha-Levi, a prolific author who composed a special service for the seventh of Adar and whose many manuscripts were destroyed in the 1824 fire. Löw's successors were Moses Friedenthal and Joseph Frankfurter; Frankfurter's yeshiva continued in the new synagogue until 1848. Nothing else is recorded of worship, officials or furnishings in the old building.

Destruction

The old synagogue was destroyed by fire, not by any human hand recorded in the sources. The Jüdische Gemeinden website says that a great town fire destroyed the entire Jewish ghetto together with the synagogue, without giving a year. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1905 dates a great fire in Třešť to 1824 and notes that it destroyed the manuscripts of Rabbi Mordecai Bet ha-Levi, and an archiweb.cz article on the later synagogue states that a huge fire destroyed the entire Jewish ghetto of Třešť in 1824. A regional tourism page instead says the synagogue was destroyed by fire in 1825; since the new building was consecrated in September 1825, 1824 is the more likely date. No source read says how the fire started, how many houses burned, or whether anything was saved from the synagogue. After the fire the community organised collections and, with a contribution from Jiczak Wiesenwald, built a new synagogue in the Empire style within about a year.

The community’s fate

The community that lost its synagogue in 1824 recovered quickly but did not keep its size. After 1848, when Jews in Austria gained freedom of residence, many left Třešť, and membership fell from 676 in 1857 to 281 in 1869, 245 in 1890 and 169 in 1900. About 1930 only 64 Jews remained, 1.3 per cent of the population. After the Nazi German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 Jewish businesses in the town were expropriated. Some members emigrated to England and Palestine. According to the Jüdische Gemeinden website, the last Jews of Třešť were deported in mid-May 1942; the Encyclopaedia Judaica says they were taken via the Theresienstadt ghetto to the death camps in occupied Poland. The number of victims and survivors is unknown, and no community was re-established after the war. The Jewish cemetery, with about 1,300 gravestones, the oldest from 1705, survives and was restored in the 1980s.

The site today

The exact plot of the synagogue that burned in 1824 has not been identified in any source read. The former Jewish quarter lay in the centre of Třešť, and many of its houses survive, rebuilt after the fire and altered since. The replacement synagogue of 1825 stands facing náměstí Svobody, in what a regional tourism page calls the southern part of the ghetto; whether it occupies the site of its predecessor is unknown. It has been restored, serves the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and holds exhibitions on the Jewish community of Třešť and on Franz Kafka in the town. A memorial to the deported and murdered Jews of Třešť has stood in the town since 1992. The map pin marks the 1825 synagogue as the best available indication of the area of the old building.

Notable names

Eleazar Löw (Shemen Rokeach)

1758-1837Rabbi of Třešť and head of its yeshiva, from 1800 to about 1820

Löw came to Třešť in 1800 and founded a yeshiva of between 100 and 200 students that made the town a centre of learning while the old synagogue stood. He left for the Pilsen and Klattau district rabbinate at Poběžovice about 1810-1812, but the congregation, unable to find a successor, recalled him, and he served again until about 1820-1821 before moving to Liptovský Mikuláš. He wrote the commentary Shemen Rokeach and died at Szántó in 1837.

Biography or source →

Mordecai Bet ha-Levi

UnknownRabbi and Kabbalist in Třešť

The Jewish Encyclopedia lists Mordecai Bet ha-Levi among the rabbis of Třešť and describes him as a prolific Kabbalistic author who composed a special service for the seventh of Adar. His many manuscripts were destroyed in the great fire of 1824, the same fire that burned the Jewish quarter and its synagogue. His dates and the years of his service in Třešť were not found.

Biography or source →