Josefov: Jews in Prague

Josefov is an area of central Prague, today Czech Republic, formerly the Jewish ghetto of the town. The quarter is often represented by the flag of Prague's Jewish community, a yellow Magen David (Star of David) on a red field.Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The first pogrom was in 1096 (the first crusade) and eventually they were concentrated within a walled Ghetto. In 1262 P?emysl Otakar II issued a Statuta Judaeorum which granted the community a degree of self administration. In 1389 one of the worst pogroms saw over 3,000 massacred at Easter. The ghetto was most prosperous towards the end of the 16th century when the Jewish Mayor, Mordecai Maisel, became the Minister of Finance and a very wealthy man. His money helped
develop the ghetto. In 1850 the quarter was renamed "Josefstadt" (Joseph's City) after Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor who emacipated Jews with the Toleration Edict in 1781. Most of the quarter was demolished between 1893 and 1913 as part of an initiative to model the city on Paris. What was left were only six synagogues, the old cemetery, and the Old Jewish Town Hall The Nazi German occupation could have been expected to complete the demolishment of the old ghetto. However the area was preserved in order to provide a site for a planned "exotic museum of an extinct race". This meant that the Nazi's gathered Jewish artefacts from all over central Europe for display in Josefov.
Currently Josefov is mixed with amongst the more modern buildings and it is difficult to appreciate exactly what the old quarter was like when it was reputed to have over 180,000 inhabitants.