“May this temple survive many centuries and testify, even in the distant future, to the devout souls of its founders. May it fully serve its purpose for all time to bring together worshippers in a place where they can uplift their souls to the Creator.”
Next month, it will be 120 years since these words were written on a parchment scroll by the founders of the Jerusalem Synagogue in Prague. The scroll, which was discovered in 2003 under a marble slab to the left of the Ark, can only begin to convey the sense of dread, hope and dread again that one feels sitting in its pews today.
The Jerusalem Synagogue was built at the height of the Jewish community’s stability and influence in Prague. Its founders came together after the city decided to raze and reconstruct the Jewish part of the city. After centuries of pogroms, expulsions and oppression, in 1781, Emperor Josef II issued the Edict of Tolerance for the Jews of Bohemia, which allowed Jews to go to the state’s schools and freely move around (without any markings on their clothing to signify their Jewish status) and to hold different professions.
Wealthier Jews began to leave for other areas of the city, and they constructed new institutions in those places. The architect of the Jerusalem Synagogue, Wilhelm Stiassny, had studied in Vienna, and designed and supervised the building of 180 different residences, houses of worship, and hospitals throughout the Hapsburg Empire.
The Art Nouveau design with Moorish influences is breathtaking. Light streams in through stained glass and bounces off walls painted in blue and gold. For someone who is Jewish traveling through Europe, and visiting historic cathedrals each day, entering a beautiful synagogue can feel like a relief. The cathedrals will leave you inspired by human accomplishment. But the synagogue will fill you with awe and spiritual comfort.
In the late 19th and 20th centuries, Jews reached the highest levels of society in Europe, making their mark in music, literature and politics. Franz Kafka was one of the city’s most famous Jewish residents. By the beginning of World War II, there were some 350,000 Jews in Czechoslovakia. The Nazis killed 80,000 of them. The Pinkas Synagogue has inscribed the names of all of them on its walls, as well as the region they are from and the dates of birth and disappearance. The names are recited, one by one, over a loudspeaker continuously throughout the week.
The synagogues in Prague were only preserved because they were used as storehouses for all the Jews’ belongings once they were sent to concentration camps. In Vienna, by contrast, the synagogues were just burned down.
Today, the Jewish community of Prague is small — a few thousand souls who alternate worshipping in the different buildings. The upkeep on the synagogues can be sustained by the tourists who come to visit. But there are barely enough Jewish locals to fill the seats of any one of these great structures.
Sitting in the pew at the middle of the synagogue, I wondered about my own responsibilities to my son who was wandering through the exhibitions upstairs, to my other children at home, to my local Jewish community and to the Jewish people. The day began with a closed street in front of one synagogue where someone had left a backpack unattended. The bomb squad was called to examine it.
Earlier in the week, we were in Vienna, where one of the only kosher establishments in the city had the word “scum” spray-painted on its wall. Last week, a man entered one of New York’s largest synagogues and assaulted a congregant and a security guard while yelling antisemitic slurs.
Are Jews in America living like they were in Europe in the early 20th century? Are the warning signs all there? Our tour guides in Vienna and Prague swing back and forth between trying to explain the psychology behind the “mob mentality” that overtook their continent and the monstrous details of the mass extermination. They worry too about the political influences they see around them, but they seem to believe that education is the best way of avoiding a repeat of the past. Perhaps in the broadest sense, but the educated classes were only too happy to participate in the Nazis’ “Final Solution.”
Which brings me back to my own family. I want my children to understand what happened, that human beings are capable of unspeakable evil. I want them to understand that, no matter what level of societal acceptance and success they achieve, Jews will always be a convenient object of blame. And that it doesn’t matter what kind of Jew you are — the most observant, the least observant, a fervent Zionist or completely unsupportive of a Jewish homeland — you are Jewish enough for the people who hate you.
I want my children to see the beauty in our traditions: in the Torah, prayers, scholarship, even our buildings. What has allowed us to endure all these centuries? God’s protection or our own adherence to laws and customs? Our commitment to our ancestors and our descendants? I don’t know. I hope my children will think about and struggle with these questions.
In Jewish tradition, when someone celebrates a milestone, we say, “May you live to be 120,” which was the age the Torah says Moses had reached when he died. The phrase signifies that someone should lead a long and full life. The Jerusalem Synagogue has reached 120 already, but many of those years have been marred by death and destruction. May the next 120 bring back the fullness of its life.