{"id":226145,"date":"2026-06-01T13:02:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudavymkrokem.cz\/?p=226145"},"modified":"2026-06-07T07:23:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:23:00","slug":"prague-jewish-quarter-josefov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudavymkrokem.cz\/en\/prague-jewish-quarter-josefov\/","title":{"rendered":"Prague Jewish Quarter: 15 Things to See in Josefov (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whenever I walk down \u0160irok\u00e1 Street and pass the parked Porsches, I’m always struck by the absurd contrast that the Prague Jewish Quarter offers today. You’re standing in a place where the poor once crammed into the dark, damp lanes of one of the most densely populated ghettos in Europe \u2014 and now the polished shop windows glow with price tags that could buy you a small flat. During my years in Prague, when I shuttled between secondary school and Charles University, I learned to see Josefov not as a shopping boulevard, but as a scar on the face of the city. A scar that was largely cut away at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries during the so-called Prague clearance (asanace)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our history teachers back then didn’t sugar-coat anything \u2014 they took us straight to the peeling walls of the old synagogues<\/strong>. No dry memorising of dates from the blackboard. Here, in the shade of the tall trees lining the cemetery, those historical tragedies took on real shape. Later, when I was taking a photojournalism course with a heavy DSLR around my neck, I spent my early mornings here. I tried to capture that specific light breaking over the edges of the leaning tombstones, before the narrow paths flooded with organised tour groups and their umbrellas held high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, when my husband Luk\u00e1\u0161 and I return to Prague each year, our walks through this district have taken on a new dimension. Recently we manoeuvred through it for the first time with our two-year-old Jon\u00e1\u0161 in a pushchair. You discover plenty of down-to-earth things along the way \u2014 like how squeezing an off-road pram through the narrow doorways of some sights is a superhuman task, or how the silence in the synagogues is so deep that every little cough sounds like a gunshot. And yet we keep coming back. The weight of history still lingers here<\/strong>, despite the Art Nouveau facades and the tourist buzz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let’s take it step by step \u2014 the synagogues, the cemetery, Kafka, and a few things you won’t find in the guidebooks, because you only learn them once you arrive with a pushchair. \ud83d\ude05<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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