Prague |
Traveling
through Prague, Vienna, and Budapest earlier this year, I admired the three
jewels of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for their rich history and striking
architecture. I was also impressed how inevitably intertwined were the local
traditions and the Jewish culture. I thought I knew enough from literature and
cinema, but it took the locals to have the history really unwrap for me.
Named after
the Emperor Josef II who granted the Prague Jews the freedom to engage in
commerce and attend state schools, Josefov, the Prague Jewish Quarter, is
wedged between the Old Town Square and the Vltava river. The Jewish presence in
Prague dates back to the 10th century; so does the first pogrom,
shortly after which Židés gathered within the walled ghetto and
eventually gained a self-administration status. Old and new, truths and legends
are tightly interwoven here: 20th century buildings elbow historical
temples reconstructed after the Communist regime while tales of Golem, the
mystical character created by Rabbi Loew to guard the ghetto’s populace,
coexist with WWII survival stories. An Old Synagogue |
The present Viennese Jewish community is small, but on the brink of the 20th century, Vienna was one of the most prominent centers of Jewish culture in Europe. In the 13th century, Emperor Frederick II allowed the wandering nation to have synagogues and hospitals and later designated a special Judenrichter – a judge to arbitrate disputes between Christians and Jews. With the fall of the Hapsburgs, the Jewish population grew – until the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938. Within the next two years, more than 130,000 Jews fled Vienna leaving behind everything they owned while also paying the émigré tax – the price of survival. The remaining 65,000 were deported to concentration camps; barely 2,000 lived. Since 1945, the Jewish culture and society have been gradually recovering – nowadays there are eight Ashkenazi and three Sephardic synagogues.
It is the city of Budapest that has the largest Jewish population in
Eastern Europe today, but its Jewish chronicle is a complicated saga of
history. In the 14th century, the wealthy Zsidók participated
in the royal ceremonies of King Mattahias, but eventually fell out of favor.
They did better under the Ottoman rule and even sided with the Turks during the
Austrian conquest, after which barely 500 of them survived. The Hapsburgs had
mercurial tolerance for the Jews, alternating between accepting and expelling –
until they finally relented on the brink of the 19th century. From
that point on until 1930, the Jews enjoyed peace and prosperity, partaking in
the development of the capital and the country’s industrial boom. By WWII, the
community grew to more than 200,000 people and boasted 125 temples.
Night view from Intercontinental Budapest. During WWII, its present spot was occupied by a Portuguese embassy that helped Hungarian Jews escape the country. |
What a great idea for a book, don’t you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment