The Jewish community in Prostějov was one of the biggest Jewish communities in the Moravian region called the "''Jerusalem of Hana''".The Jewish quarter remained until 1990 when they demolished the buildings. There are two former synagogues: New Synagogue (now Hus Congregational House) and Synagogue Beit Ha-Midrash (owned by Orthodox Church). Rabbi

Meir Eisenstadt Meir ben Izsak Eisenstadt ( he, מאיר איזנשטט, ''also'' Meir Ash, c. 1670 in Poznań – 1744 in Eisenstadt) was the author of responsa and other works of rabbinic literature. An authority on Halakha, he was consulted by rabbis from ...

, Judah Leib Prossnitz, Rabbi

Jonathan Eybeschutz Rav Yonatan Eybeschütz (רבי יהונתן אייבשיץ) (also Eibeschutz or Eibeschitz; 1690 1764) was a Talmudist, Halachist, Kabbalist, holding positions as Dayan of Prague, and later as Rabbi of the "Three Communities": Altona, Hambur ...

, Rabbi

Nathan Porges Nathan Porges (21 December 1848 – 27 August 1924) was a Bohemia and German rabbi. Biography Porges was born in Prostějov in Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire. He was educated in his native town Prostějov, at the gymnasium of Olom ...

, Rabbi

Moses Sofer Moses Schreiber (1762–1839), known to his own community and Jewish posterity in the Hebrew translation as Moshe Sofer, also known by his main work ''Chatam Sofer'', ''Chasam Sofer'', or ''Hatam Sofer'' ( trans. ''Seal of the Scribe'', and acron ...

, orientalist

Moritz Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...

and famous philosopher

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

lived here.''Content in this edit is translated from the existing Czech Wikipedia article at cz:Židé v Prostějově; see its history for attribution.'' Starting in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, Prostějov had important textile and ready-made clothing industries, in which Jews had a central role, although they sometimes clashed with Christian guilds. The first documents that mention Jews in the city date back to 1445. The Jewish community in the city was largely founded by Jews who were forced to leave nearby

Olomouc Olomouc (, , ; german: Olmütz; pl, Ołomuniec ; la, Olomucium or ''Iuliomontium'') is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019). Located on th ...

in 1454. In 1584, Jews' gained official right to residence but were still restricted in what professions they could go into. At that time, the community was made up of 31 families. The Jewish community gained more importance following the migration of

Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

from the city after pressure from local

Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. In 1639, 143 Jewish men were recorded living in the city and 64 houses there were owned by Jews. The Jewish population grew significantly as a result of people fleeing the Khmelnytsky massacres in 1648 and the Jewish expulsion from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1670. A compromise reached in 1677 and amended in 1688 about the extent of trade between Jews and non-Jews is evidence of the key role of Jews in the textile and clothing trades. In 1713, there were 318 Jewish families in the city. The Shabbatean movement and

Frankism Frankism was a heretical Sabbatean Jewish religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, centered on the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. Frank rejected religious norms and said that his fol ...

were influential in the city, and one of the leaders of the Shabbatean movement, Judah Leib Prossnitz, lived there. The community was also one of the earliest to be affect by the ideas of the

Haskalah The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...

. When Feith Ehrenstamm founded a factory in 1831, it marked the beginning of Jewish enterprise in the modern textile industry, and in 1842 there were 135 Jewish textile merchants in the city. In 1859, Mayer and Isaac Mandel founded the first ready-made clothing factory on the European continent. By 1880, there were 1,804 Jews living in the city. A number of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

refugees settled in the city, and helped make the Jewish community one of the most active in the country. The Jewish community was severely impacted by the

German invasion German invasion may refer to: Pre-1900s * German invasion of Hungary (1063) World War I * German invasion of Belgium (1914) * German invasion of Luxembourg (1914) World War II * Invasion of Poland * German invasion of Belgium (1940) * G ...

in 1939, and endured

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

raids and the closure of the synagogue in July of that year. In 1940, much of the Jewish community fled. The remaining Jews were sent by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

extermination camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

in 1942. About 1,390 Jews from Prostějov were killed in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jews in Prostejov History of Moravia Prostějov Jewish communities in the Czech Republic