The Jews of Bohemia, Later Called Czechoslovakia

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

Bohemia doesn't exist today.  Once it was a country.    Today, Bohemians are people with an unconventional lifestyle, originally practiced by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. 

Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, the whole of Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia, defying claims of the German-speaking inhabitants that regions with German-speaking majority should be included in the Republic of German-Austria. Between 1938 and 1945, these border regions were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland.

                Prague's Old Town Square:  Prague is a political, cultural, and economic hub of central Europe, with a rich history  and Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectures. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV (r. 1346–1378).

Jews are known to have lived in Bohemia since the 10th century.  Prague was probably the oldest settlement.  They engaged in trade. They were forced to live in ghettos.  Ghettos had started in 1517 in Venice, but the idea of the segregation of the Jews was implicit in earlier church legislation and goes back to the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215.  

                   King Ottokar II of Bohemia Ottokar was the second son of King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (reigned 1230–1253). Through his mother, Kunigunde, daughter of Philip of Swabia, he was related to the Holy Roman Emperors of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which became extinct in the male line upon the execution of King Conradin of Sicily in 1268.

During the period of Crusaders, from 1096 onward, the Jews suffered severe persecutions and many were forcibly baptized. Those who reverted to Judaism and attempted to leave were robbed on their departure (1098). Their position improved by the 13th century under Ottokar II, but deteriorated by the 14th century under Charles IV.  A number of decrees directed against the Jews and their  economic position were issued during the 15th and 16th centuries.

There are probably descendants of those persecuted and baptized Jews living in Bohemian centers elsewhere, like in North Dakota in pioneer days.  With DNA testing today, it wouldn't even show up as we don't know the haplogroups of the Bohemian Jews, but a common grouping might take place. 

In 1512, Gershon ben Solomon Cohen established a Hebrew printing shop in Prague, however, from 1562, all Hebrew books were subject to censorship. 

 There was a large and self-contained Jewish quarter (Judenstadt).  its ancient synagogues many of which still stand, its world-renowed scholars, and its Hebrew printing-press, its highly-developed autonomous institution, its craft-guilds, etc. all in Prague.   

Entrance of Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Kyiv, Mykola Ivasyuk

Khmelnytsky was a Ukrainian military commander and Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, which was then under the suzerainty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates (1648–1654) that resulted in the creation of an independent Ukrainian Cossack state.

 During the uprising the Cossacks led a massacre of thousands of Jewish people during 1648–1649 as one of the more traumatic events in the history of the Jews in Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism. 

  Jews were expelled  on several occasions, even from Prague, by now one of the greatest European Jewish centers.  many Jews fled to Czechoslovakia from Eastern Europe at the time of the the Chmielnicki pogroms of 1648.  Ghetto regulations continued to be enforced and even the number of marriages was restricted by law. 

The Jews, exiled from 1745 to 1748, were only allowed to return after promising to pay exorbitant taxes.  By 1848, the Jewes of Prague were granted full equality, and 4 years later, the ghetto was abolished.  

Maria Theresa, German Maria Theresia, (born May 13, 1717, Vienna—died November 29, 1780, Vienna), archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1740–80), wife and empress of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I (reigned 1745–65), and mother of the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II (reigned 1765–90). 

Jews taking snuff in Prague, painting by Mírohorský, 1885

Maria Theresa decreed in 1744 a general expulsion of he Jews which was enforced to some extent the next year.  from 1781 to 1919, the history of the Jews merged with that of Austria.  

After WWI, Jews had full rights of citizens.  Czechoslovak republic was the 1st country to recognize Jewish nationality and numbered 357,000 in 1935.  

Repeating again, the 1989 revolution led to full freedom for the Jewish community of 12,000 in 1990.  As of 2021, there were approximately 2,300 Jews living in the Czech Republic.

Resource:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bohemia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemia

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Czech_lands

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-Theresa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Khmelnytsky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottokar_II_of_Bohemia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague

https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-from-the-teeth-of-14th-century-ashkenazi-jews-in-germany-already-included-genetic-variations-common-in-modern-jews-194780