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

Paths Jews Followed to Prague

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

The Arch of Titus in Rome
Forcing Jewish slaves to carry the loot Romans took out of the Temple
before burning it down

70 CE was  a momentous date for Jews.  That's when the Romans, who had been occupying Jerusalem since 40 BCE, decided to burn the city along with the Jewish 2nd Temple and turn it into a Roman Temple site.  It had been that "in 37 BCE, Herod, a son-in-law of Hyrcanus II, was appointed King of Judea by the Romans." Judah had been without their own kingly dynasty since their last king, Zedekiah, who ruled from 597-586 BCE.  

After 632 when Mohammed died, a mosque was built over the Roman Temple built in the very center of the Temple area in Jerusalem, called the Mosque of Omar  by Calph Omar, which was a temporary structure.  Then in about 738,  It was rebuilt by the Caliph Abd al-Malik also known as (Dome of the Rock) to replace the temporary structure set up by Caliph Omar.  The 2 mosques were built about a century apart on Mt. Moriah.  Today this is called the Temple Mount area and Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, gave the Jordanians rule over the mount due to the Muslim temples being there.  The problem remains that they sit over the site of our first Temple built by King Solomon and the 2nd Temple rebuilt by the Israeli returnees from Babylonian exile.  The temples were centers of Jewish learning and the Jewish religion, the first monotheistic religion in the world.  

Jews were taken captive and marched to Rome as shown by the ARCH OF TITUS  in Rome that depicts the event.  The Jews are forced to carry the loot the Romans have taken out of the Temple.  

They were used as prisoners in building in Rome and even in their army.  Eventually they worked their way to France and Germany.  These are the Jews who eventually became those called the Ashkenazi Jews, those who had been in Germany.  

Others had escaped from Jerusalem and had gone to the Iberian Peninsula, known about in past trading routes.  Before 1492, problems arose with the spread of Christianity and it's first formal presentation with Catholicism.  By 1492, Jews were expulsed from Spain if they didn't convert to Christianity.  They moved to Portugal and Central Italy,  then later to Western Europe in their  commercial cities.  The Ottoman Empire with Islam was more tolerant towards Jews though they had intolerant writing about them in their Koran, and they were treated as 2nd class people there, only occasionally attacked for being Jewish.  Istanbul and Salonica became Jewish centers.
                                                       

The Jews in Rome thus wound up in Northern Italy, and from there spread out to Bohemia, Moravia and Poland.  Prague, Bohemia/Czechoslovakia, Cracow, Poland which is near the Czech Republic  and Lublin, Poland became Jewish centers after such German centers in Worms and Mainz, Germany in the 1000s.  

.  The area of Prague  became the seat of the dukes, and later kings of Bohemia.  Prague contained an important slave market.  Jews had come to Prague in the 10th century as traders.    Prague was an important seat for trading where merchants from all of Europe settled, including many Jews, as recalled in 965 by the Hispano-Jewish merchant and traveller Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub.  Under Holy Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973. Jews fought against the attacks of the Crusaders there in 1096.  They suffered from severe persecution and many were forcibly baptized by the Christians.  Things got a little better by the 12th century.  
                                                   

Until Prague was elevated to archbishopric in 1344, it was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Mainz, Rhineland (Germany).  The Old New Synagogue of 1270 still stands.   Today of course,  Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic.  It used to be called Czechoslovakia. Many Jews had fled to Czechoslovakia from eastern Europe at the time of the Chmielnicki pogroms of 1648 in Poland when 744 Jewish communities were wiped out, but ghetto regulations continued to be enforced and even the number of marriages were restricted by law.  Maria Theresa decreed in 1744 the general expulsion of Jews. Jews were then fully exiled from 1745 to 1748, and were only allowed to return after promising to pay exorbitant taxes.  They had to continue to live in ghettos.  By 1848, the Jews of Prague were granted full equality and 4 years later in 1852 the ghetto was abolished.  

This is when Jews became interested in the German culture and less about the Czech culture.  Then the geography changed, because in 1938, 15,000 Jews from the Sudenten district (The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans) ceded to Germany and sought refuge in Prague.  Anti-Semitism was running rampant in Germany by then.  A month later, the liquidation of the Prague Jewish community began.  There were 65,000 Jews in Prague in 1942 with about 25,000 being refugees and all were exterminated by 1945.  

What amazes me is that there was a small Jewish community there with 1,400 Jews , subservient to the Communist regime who had taken over until the 1989 revolution.  Since 1989, Jews have been living without malice, probably up until now since it's spreading all over the world again.  Tourists have been coming and viewing the magnificently preserved synagogues and cemeteries, rare finds in Europe as the 2nd World War destroyed so many.  

Resource:  https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-printing/
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/roman-rule-63bce-313ce
https://www.jta.org/1969/04/10/archive/prague-daily-warns-of-mounting-anti-semitism-in-czechoslovakia-asks-ban
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39973195

The Precarious Life of Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller Ancestor of Many Today

Nadene Goldfoot                              

Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller, "Tosfot Yom Tov"(1579-1654)

Austria in those days was where German Jews fled to from persecutions in Germany.  By 1244, Duke Frederick the Quarrelsome gave the Jews a new charter serving as a model for other countries.  From the 13th to 15th century, serious persecutions kept happening culminating in 1420 with a ritual murder accusation against the Jews.  That caused Jews in Austria to be either burned, expelled or forcibly baptized, with even more restrictions coming.  The scene is now set for the birth of Rabbi Yom Tov and his bout with Austria.

Rabbi Yom Tov was a Talmudist.  That means he had a lot to say about our books, the 2 Talmuds, the Babylonian one written in Babylonia, the more popular one and the Palestinian one, written in the Homeland.  Both these compilations were made up of the records of academic discussions and of judicial administration of Jewish Law.  Generations of scholars and jurists, experts in our law were kept on record of what they had decided from many academies and from more than one country over many centuries.  These were completed around 200 CE.  I note that RASHI, who was Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki ben Isaac (1040-1105) was one of the most respected commentators and his name appears in our prayer books many times.  These people were most likely Cohens in the synagogues, serving in that capacity as well.  Today, this line appears in our Y DNA as a J1 haplogroup or variation of the J.  

Rabbi Yom Tov  was born in Bavaria which is now a state within Germany that borders Liechtenstein, Austria and the Czech Republic.  Munich is this state's capital.  When he was 18 years old, he was appointed dayyan at Prague.  A dayyan is a judge in a rabbinical court.  Not all rabbis were qualified to serve as dayyanim.  The ordinary rabbi can decide only on matters of religious nature.  However, the dayyan is also qualified to judge money matters and problems of civil law brought before a Jewish court.  It is amazing to us today that an 18 year old would be deemed to such a position.  

In those days  Prague was a well known city,  built in 1402, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 1867 and  was called Czechoslovakia from October 1918 till recently, calling it Czech Republic by 1993.  Prague is still  the capital.    
                                                   

When he was 50 years old in 1629, he was fined heavily on a charge of libeling the state and Christianity, and was forbidden to act as rabbi in Prague. "Rabbi Heller was accused of insulting Christianity and imprisoned in Vienna." This was the state's decision, not the Jewish people he served.  Charges were usually false against Jews, and done for reason of garnishing money from them.  
                                                      

About the Chmielnicki massacres

He thus served  in various communities, being in Cracow, (Krakow today a southern Polish city near the border of the Czech Republic, is known for its well-preserved medieval core and Jewish quarter)., during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 in Ukraine for which he composed penitential psalms and commemorative prayers.  This is a city with the nickname of "a hundred spires", spires being the tops of the Catholic churches.  Their pedestrian Charles Bridge is lined with statues of Catholic saints.  It had its Jewish quarter as well.  The atmosphere of this city was heavy with Catholicism.  A man named Chmielnicki " told people that the Polish had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews."  The Cossacks, a military class of Ukranian-southern Russians,  were so angry when they heard this that they massacred tens of thousands of Jews during 1648-49 in a war that would later be known as among the worst of that time period.                                           
                                                         

"Because of their role in the government and economy as tax collectors and customs agents, non-Jewish members of the lower class were not happy with the Jews. For a century this anger and hate boiled over until it spilled over the edge with the Chmielnicki Massacres by Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian Cossacks. Events like the slaughter of 2000 Jews on June 24th, 1648, the killing of 10,000 Jews on July 22nd, 1648, and the massacre of 12,000 Jews on November 2nd, 1648 were big examples of the anti-semitism running wild throughout Ukraine." It must be remembered that discrimination against Jews amounted to not letting them into any way of self support except by lending money  and such things deplorable to them such as being tax collectors and customs agents.  I don't think that many a Jew was left in the Ukraine after this blood-letting.  

Rabbi Yom Tov was lucky to have been in Poland at the time.  He went on to write many other works on religious subjects and secular compositions on such subjects as mathematics and natural science.  His fame was in writing a commentary on the Mishnah, Tosephot Yom Tov.  (The Additions of Yom Tov).  It was printed in many following editions of the Mishnah, liked for its profundity, simplicity, and logical approach to matters.  The book of Mishnah was the legal codification containing the core of the ORAL LAW.  From early times in Israel there was the tradition of interpretation and analysis of the WRITTEN LAW OF MOSES.  During the 2nd Temple period, the ancient oral tradition was upheld by the Pharisees and supported by the majority of the Jews.  It wasn't recognized by other sects, such as the Sadducees and the Essenes, who had their own traditions regarding the interpretation of the Written Law.  After the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisaic view won national acceptance and the Oral Law was studied in the many academies of rabbis.  
                                                      

He had a start in life that was all about his education.  "After Rabbi Heller was born, he was raised by his grandfather, Rabbi Moses Ha-Levi Heller in Wallerstein, now in Germany. As a teenager Heller was sent to Friedberg, near Wallerstein, where he studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Jacob Günzburg. From there he moved to Prague, where he became a disciple of the Maharal, head of the yeshiva of Prague".  Life was made up of studying and learning just as young men and women are expected to do today, only on a more serious level back then for Jews, as it was about their religion.  This was the life of many Ashkenazi Jews.  

(Note) the Pharisees were of the 2nd Temple period.  The first temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar.  Jews returned to Jerusalem in 538 BCE. a period of 48 years of being forced to be away. When they returned, they rebuilt the Temple which was then destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans.   They might have been the descendants of the Hasideans and made up a relatively narrow body of men.  There was a gulf between them and the others ignorant of the Law or not practicing it.  It was the Sadducees who controlled the Temple matters.  They saw things differently.  The Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution to their legal decisions.  The Sadducees were incapable of adaptation to the changing environment.  The Pharicees were more lenient in their decisions.  The Sadducees clung to the letter of the written text.  

Originally compiled by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi on the basis of earlier collections, it   was arranged logically, divided into 6 orders dealing with religious laws about agriculture, laws of Sabbath, festivals, laws of marriage and divorce and vows, damages, civil and criminal legislation, holy things, koshering, etc.  

The descendants of Rabbi Yom Tov Heller are on a website below.  I note on it that Rabbi Yom Tov should be very proud.  Rabbi  Isser Yehuda Unterman, second Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, was born on 14 Nissan 5646 / 1886 in Brest-Litovsk (Brisk), where his father, R' Eliyahu, was a melamed / teacher of children. Among R' Isser Yehuda's ancestors were R' Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1579-1654; author of the Mishnah commentary, Tosefot Yom Tov) and Rabbi Shaul Wahl Katznellenbogen (1540_1616). Legend records that this latter personality was elected King of Poland for a day.

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/05/ukraines-massacre-of-jews-worse-than.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom-Tov_Lipmann_Heller
https://sites.google.com/site/diasporainukraine/home/pre-wwi/chmielnicki-massacres
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/svisloch/descendants_of_yom_tov_lippman.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary


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