Czech Republic: June 22

Another good day!  We slept late, which for us is 9:00, and then Dempsey made a wonderful frittata, which all three of us enjoyed with toast and red currant jam, washed down with great tea or coffee.  then Alexandra and I visited Josefov, the Jewish quarter of Prague.  Jews settled in Prague as early as the 10th c., and were initially thought to have settled both sides of the river.  In 1096 the first pogrom took place, which had a hand in establish a Jewish enclave within Stare Mesto during the 12th c.  Not much later, they were actually "herded" into a walled ghetto, sealed off from the rest of the town and subjected to a curfew.  They were subject to laws restricting their choice of profession to usury and the rag trade.  In addition, some form of visible identification remained a more or less constant feature of Jewish life until the Enlightenment.  It was Emperor Joseph II, from 1780-90, who did most to lift restrictions on Jews.  His 1781 Edict of Tolerance ended the dress codes, opened up education to all non-Catholics, and removed the gates from the ghetto.  In 1850 the community paid him homage by officially naming the ghetto Josefov.  But it was not until 1848 that Jews were given equal status within the Empire and allowed officially to settle outside the ghetto.  From 1848, the ghetto went into decline, leaving behind only the poorest Jews, strictly Orthodox families, gypsies, beggars, prostitutes, and alcoholics to populate its confines.  After the Nazis occupied Prague in 1939, the city's Jews were subject to an increasingly harsh set of regulations.  They were banned from most professions, placed under curfew, and compelled to wear the Star of David.  Of the estimated 55,000 Jews in Prague at the time of the Nazi invasion, over 36,000 died in camps.  many survivors emigrated to Israel and the US.  Alexandra and I bought our tickets and went to visit the following synagogues: the Spanish Synagogue, built in 1868 and featuring a stunning gilded. Moorish interior reminiscent of the Alhambra; the Old-New Synagogue, begun in the second half of the 13th c. and the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe; and the Old Jewish cemetery, established in the first half of  the 15th c.  Burials took place there until 1787.  Today it contains some 12,000 tombstones, although the number of persons buried here is much greater.  After the cemetery, Alexandra and I went next door to visit the UPM or Museum of Decorative Art.  The building is a late 19th c. creation, richly decorated in mosaics, stained glass and sculpture.  We called Dempsey and waited for her to arrive before setting off to visit the collections.  She came and we had tea, then visited the ground floor (only part open), seeing costume exhibits, trays and trays of textiles, book plates, end papers, photographs, porcelain, glass, ceramics, etc.  We spent a fascinating 2 hours there before setting off for a return to the apartment.  This evening we are off to a Jazz Boat tour and dinner on the Vltava River.  At the end of the 2-hour trip, there will be a fireworks display, and we are looking forward to that event.  tomorrow, off to Visherad to see the graves of Smetana and Dvorak, the giants of Czech music.  more tomorrow!