When in Prague, you should definitely plan a visit to the Jewish Museum. This is not a traditional museum in a single building. A visit involves walking through the Jewish Quarter of Prague and visiting exhibits in a number of the old synagogues of the city. The Maisel Synagogue is used for exhibition space. The Spanish Synagogue is an incredibly beautiful building currently in use, said to be the second largest Jewish house of worship in the world (just one inch smaller than Temple Emmanuel in New York). The Old Jewish Cemetery is an impressive site with nearly 12,000 tombstones.
The most impressive site in the Jewish Museum, however, is the Pinkas Synagogue which serves as a memorial to 80,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Bohemia and Moravia. The names of these victims have been hand-painted on the walls of the synagogue (see the picture at the top of this article), and the sight of this seemingly endless list of names is an truly awesome experience. In the realization of the brutality of which humans are capable, we are reminded of our capacity for goodness and of the need — especially in these days — to embrace our common humanity. Travel becomes a transcendent experience for me in moments such as these.
copyright (c) 2009 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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