The line at the Pinkas Synagogue was pretty short. We bought tickets for 4 synagogues, the cemetery and the Ceremonial Hall of the burial society. These sites constitute the Jewish Museum in Prague. Unfortunately, none of them allow photos of the inside. We bought a permit to take pictures in the cemetery. There are probably 1000 stone, but since they ran out of room, they piled more dirt on top of the older burials and buried more people. So there may be 7000 people actually buried on the site.
Third stop was the ceremonial hall of the Prague Burial Society. This site is dedicated to the rituals associated with death and burial. There is a series of paintings depicting the stages from death to the meal in the home of the bereaved.
The fourth stop is next door. The site of a really old synagogue that was destroyed and this Baroque one was built later. The original site also had a school. Now that we have done 3-6, it's time to go back and do the first stop, the Meisel Synagogue. This is another old building - 1700s. There are a lot of display cases with materials from the various holidays and rituals.
Michael has been reading Rick Steves again and has decided he wants to see the Old New Synagogue. This is actually the oldest one - it was the new one at one time, but after others were built, it became the old new one. It is built several steps below the street level, like the one in Vienna. It feels very Medieval. Here's a picture of the outside. And a link to wikipedia with a pic of the inside. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_New_Synagogue. One site says Kafka attended this synagogue, which is still in us
Time for lunch at the Kafka Cafe. Sandwiches seem to be kind of a new thing here, but tuna on baguettes are good and besides, it has started raining again so it's good to be inside.
After lunch we decide to hike over to the newest Synagogue on Jerusalem Street. This one really looks like a mosque on the outside. And the inside. This one was finished around 1906 and has a definite Moorish feel to it. Here we are allowed to take pictures. This is one of the outside and the second was taken inside.
Last one on our list is the Spanish Synagogue, so named because, like the Jerusalem Synagogue, it was a Moorish style. No pictures, which is really too bad as it is the most dramatic of them all. Here we learn that the Jewish Museum of Prague includes materials from all over Bohemia and Moravia. For some reason the Nazis decided to allow the Synagogues in Prague to collect materials as other Jewish communities were destroyed. There are photos of the collection during the war. Most of it has survived. A sad commentary on the loss of all those people. Here's a link to a site with a picture of the inside. http://jbuff.com/shul%20prague%20spanish_synagogue.htm. Wikipedia also has a page.
We decide to have dinner at a Kosher restaurant near the apartment. The Middle Eastern cuisine is a nice change from the heavier food we have been eating. Grilled vegetables, hummus, and salmon in a tomato sauce. This last one was a bit of a surprise as the menu said salmon with tomatoes and onions. Turned out to be a rich tomato sauce - very good.
We are off to Cesky Krumlov tomorrow. A small town in the south. Should be interesting. Back to Munich Tuesday night for the flight out on Wednesday.
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