Josefov — Jewish Quarter

What it is

The old Jewish Quarter, folded inside the Old Town a couple of streets north of the main square. Jews lived walled into this ground from the Middle Ages; the legend of the Golem was set here, in Rabbi Loew's sixteenth-century ghetto. Around 1900 the city demolished almost all of it in a slum clearance and rebuilt the street grid with Art Nouveau apartment houses — which is why Prague's most solemn monuments now stand between its most expensive façades. Pařížská, the avenue cut through the middle, is the city's luxury shopping street.

What is here

What the demolition spared, which is precisely the historic core: the Old-New Synagogue, in use since about 1270 and the oldest active synagogue in Europe; the Old Jewish Cemetery, where some twelve thousand visible stones stand over graves layered many deep because the community was never allowed more ground; the Pinkas Synagogue, its walls hand-written with the names of nearly eighty thousand Czech and Moravian victims of the Holocaust; and the Spanish Synagogue, with the most lavish Moorish-revival interior in the city. The Rudolfinum concert hall, home of the Czech Philharmonic, closes the quarter at the river. Franz Kafka was born on its edge, by the Old Town Hall side.

What it is like

A daytime museum quarter and one of the quietest corners of the centre after dark — there is almost no nightlife, and the restaurants price to the Pařížská address. It is also the one part of Prague that asks for a different register from the visitor: the Pinkas memorial and the cemetery are heavy, and they should be.

Practical

One Jewish Museum ticket covers the cemetery and most synagogues; the Old-New Synagogue is run by the community and ticketed separately. Everything is closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays — a detail that catches out a lot of weekend visitors, so plan Josefov for a weekday. Men are asked to cover their heads inside the active synagogues; paper kippot are provided.

Metro Staroměstská is three minutes away. As a place to sleep it is the quietest genuinely central address in Prague, with prices to match the shop windows.