Let us pick up from where we left off in Part 1 on the history of Slany’s Jews. From the 16th century, there are sources mentioning that Jews have not been allowed to spend the night in the city. By its end, local guilds of furriers and tailors even reclaimed permission to prevent Jews from trading these commoditiesin the city. However, bans and limitations have not always been met. An example may be found for instance in Libor Dobner letting a Jewish retired soldier Šalomoun Renner stay in 1603 or that of Jewish physician Abraham in Slaný in 1607, thanks to whom an ill son of local burgher Adam Jirásek sucessfully recovered. This “Abraham the Doctor“ was then exempted from paying all dues at the Prague Gate. By 1793, Isaac Steiner, with his wife Maria and his son, who operated a shop with meat and brandy, is listed in the Familianten conscript of Slaný. According to a stable cadastre, in 1840, house No. 456 was owned by a Jacob Freund. The Jews were only permitted to settle permanently and unconditionally in the royal town of Slaný only after the revolutionary year of 1848. An "Israelitische Cultusverein Schlan" (“Israelitic Religious Unity of Slaný“) was founded in 1861, later transformed into a fully-fledged Jewish religious community ("Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Schlan"). In May 1864, the Jewish community obtained a building permit and on February 8, 1865, less than a year later, synagogue construction began. The Slaný synagogue is located about 100 meters northeast of Masaryk Square in Fricova Street. It was builtIt replaced the unsuitable prayer area of the community in the pub "By the Temple" in Kynský Street. It is a two-storey east-west oriented building, built in the Moorish style. The building has a typical Bohemian saddle roof. The eastern shield is divided by two window axes, among which was aron ha-kodesh, and over it a circular window, two small windows in the shield. Entrance was only from the west side. The portal was decorated with columns, and over it was a large circular window in the shield and two small windows. The wooden women's gallery was built in 1895 on the west and north side, accessed by a staircase from a neighboring Jewish school which was built to the north side of the synagogue. The southern wall of the synagogue is divided by four window axes. Rabbi Filip Bondy, a proponent of the Czech-Jewish movement and later the first rabbi of the Czech-Jewish patriotic society Or Tomid, based in Prague, was active in this synagogue in the 1880’s. He introduced the Czech language during services—a first in the Bohemian Kingdom. Left: An advertisement of the Jewish community of Slaný in 1903 for the audition of a ba'al tfila (בעל תפילה) - a synagogue singer and services leader - for the upcoming High Holidays. Prager Tagblatt, September 1903. The synagogue continued its operations until the Second World War, when repression against Jewish citizens began. In 1942, the collection of confiscated liturgical objects (scrolls of the Torah, prayer books, textiles, etc.) were placed by the Nazis in the Central Jewish Museum of War in Prague, while the Jews of Slaný were sent to concentration camps in Terezín, Auschwitz and elsewehere, where they mostly perished. Since 1958, the synagogue has been listed as a cultural monument. In 1961 it has been transferred to state property, and was used as a warehouse in 1965. Housing units were established later on. By 1974, the building served as a branch of the State Kladno District Archives. By 2017, it has been a police station. Today the former prayer hall is divided into two floors and these are further divided into separate rooms. Only the painted arched ceiling with plastic stars is preserved from the entire original rich decoration of the buulding. Lately, the facade has been restored to its original appearance out of respect to the legacy of Jews of Slaný. For a trained eye, it is actually quite obvious the building is – or used to be – a synagogue. The former Jewish school (No. 150), which was built adjecent to the main building, was converted into residential units and by the Czech police. The synagogue facilities are not preserved, and there are several dozen religious objects from Slaný and its surroundings in the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague. In the US there are probably five (possibly more) Torah scrolls from Slaný. These were sold after the World War II by the communist Ministry of Culture from the collections of the Jewish Museum to a private collector - despite the protests of the then Jewish community in Prague. The Torahs are used by Jewish communities, for example, in Savannah, Georgia, New Jersey, or Prescott, Arizona. These Jewish communities are aware of the origins of their Torahs and regularly hold memorial events during celebrations and memorial services to keep the memory of the Jews of Slaný alive. Though the Jewish community of Slaný is no more, their legacy still lives on, which you will discover if you take a kosher tour to the Jewish treasures of Europe.
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The Czech Republic, as it is with many nations in Europe, is filled with many gems worth visiting when on a Jewish vacation. Some of them you only discover when you join a heritage tour. Take the old town of Slaný for instance. A former royal town in Bohemia, Slaný has a wonderfully preserved medieval city centre. It has many historical buildings, a large square, ancient lanes and medieval fortifications. A market settlement was established in the early Middle Ages by the King of Bohemia, probably in the 11th century. He also created an important trade route leading from Prague to Saxony, which was intersected by other inland routes. The name Slaný menas “salty“. Salt was probably sold here during annual markets. It is safe to assume that Jewish merchants and peddlers have visited Slaný during those annual markets. They came via commerical routes in the early Middle Ages, immediately after the 11th century, as it was elsewhere in the Czech Kingdom. Some of them may have settled in the town permanently during the early Middle Ages. The oldest report on the Jewish settlement of Slaný, however, dates back to the first half of the 14th century. The "Jew from Slaný" is mentioned as a house owner in Valentinská Street in the Old Town of Prague. In 1444, a Jew named Isaac sold his house in Slaný to a pitch maker named Martin. Two years later, the same Jew Isaac sells another of his real estates to another local resident, to a broadcloth maker by the name of Janek. From the same year comes the proof of a sale of more real estate when "a Jew Josef sold a house to burgher Petrus Sulka". However, the town burghers disapproved of the Jews‘ presence in the city because the Jewish traders presented competition. In 1458, King George of Poděbrady issued a decree that no Jew could spend more than one night in the city. Upon entering the city, the Jew also has to pay a fee of 1 silver coin. The Gothic City gate of Prague, demolished in 1841, supposedly had a sculpture or a depiction of a Jew holding a coin. Jews had to enter and exit the town only through this gate. "If a foreign Jew came to Slaný, he had to pay a gate fee, and after he had settled his affairs, he would leave the city immediately, and could stay in nearby Lidice, where a cottage called the “Jew House“ still recalls the time here," writes Hugo Gold in his opus magnum “The Jews and Jewish Communities of Bohemia in Past and Present“ ("Die Juden und Judengemeinden Böhmens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart"). There is a chapter about Slaný and the surrounding area, which was written by Mr. Richard Fanta, a local patriot and a leader of the Slaný Jewish Community. The book was published in 1934 and up until today serves as a priceless source of information on Jews of Bohemia and Moravia that have vanished in the Holocaust not even a decade after. But there is more to the Jews of Slaný than their early records, as we will discover in Part 2. Planning on a Jewish vacation to Germany? No trip is ever complete without a visit to the country’s capital: Berlin. Aside from being the capital city, Berlin is also a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It became the capital of Germany in 1991 and since the reunification of Germany (and thus both parts of the city), is one of the largest cities in Europe and is the second largest city in the European Union. Berlin is located in the northeast of Germany, about 70 km west from the border with Poland, surrounded by the the Federative State of Brandenburg. The Spree flows through the city, with water areas (mainly lakes) accounting for 6.6% of the total area; except for many parks and similar green areas there are also forest areas on the territory of the city (17.9% of the total area). Berlin lies in the flatlands stretching between Saxony in the South and the Baltic Sea in the North. The average altitude is only 34 meters above sea level. The highest point of the otherwise flat city is Teufelsberg (115 m), which is actually an artificial pile created from rubble from bombed houses during WWII. The first historically documented reference of Berlin dates back to 1244. In 1451 Berlin became the governmental city of Brandenburg margraves and prince electors, the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, and the capital of the newly established German Empire in 1871. Berlin was a tolerant city where many persecuted refugees found shelter, including the Hugenots from France (after 1685) and Protestants from Bohemia (after 1730) whose descendant living in the so-called Czech village (Böhmisches Dorf) until the second half of the 20th century still spoke Czech. In the 1920s, Berlin became a European metropolis with a rich political, scientific, and cultural life. Tolerance ended in 1933 when Hitler came to power. After World War II, the city was largely destroyed and Berlin was divided into four occupation sectors. At the beginning of the Cold War, Berlin was at the center of the conflict. Already in 1948, the Berlin blockade occured (where all the city's supply is exclusively aviation), and then to the political division of the city. The actual division is due to the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the new chapter of the city began. Berlin became the old-new capital of reunited Germany. The Jews Of Berlin There is a large Jewish community in Berlin with 11,000 members (according to other data 13,000). It is the largest Jewish community in Germany and one of the largest in Central Europe. There are about 8,000 emigrants from the former Soviet Union from the early 1990s. This means that less than one third of the community are the Jews of the time of West Berlin. About 170,000 Jews lived in Berlin prior to the Holocaust, of which about 90,000 emigrated out of Germany when Hitler rose to power. Of the remaining , only about 800 survived the Holocaust. Berlin also has one of the largest Israeli diasporas in the world today. Many Israelis have been able to gain German citizenship in the past two decades, as their grandparents were German nationals before the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is a sad fact – but also a factor of pride – that in many cases these people were actually murdered in Nazi extermination camps. Although they themselves perished during the war (mostly with whole families) at least one of their descendants survived in some way, moving to Israel after the war, establishing a new family, having children who also had children who are now German-Israelis, as per the lineage. They are mostly from the so-called Third Generation after the Holocaust. In 2017 there were more than 33,000 but the number of Israelis living and working in Germany is even greater. Berlin is often referred to as the "Israeli capital of Europe". Berlin also boasts one of the largest European synagogues, the famous Oranienburger Straße Synagogue. It was built in 1866, burned down during the Kristallnacht in 1938, damaged badly during the bombings of WWII, and recently restored.
These are but a few interesting facts aboat the city of Berlin. Should you decide to join a kosher tour to Germany, you will surely learn much more! One of the best things about joining Europe kosher tours is that you get to learn many things about the fellow Jews that have made a big difference there, even if they weren’t born in Europe. Take Robert Rosenthal for example.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal (June 11, 1917 – April 20, 2007) was a highly decorated pilot in the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces in World War II. He had sixteen awards including the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against the enemy," the Silver Star for "gallantry in action," the Distinguished Flying Cross for "heroism or extraordinary achievement during aerial flight," the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. He was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross from Great Britain and the Croix de Guerre from France. Intelligence Officer Marvin Bowman once described Rosenthal as "one of the great figures of the Air Force; a shy, modest, and patriotic gentleman of truly amazing courage and achievement." In 2006, he was inducted into the Jewish-American Hall of Fame and medals were made depicting Rosenthal and his crew. Rosenthal was a graduate of Brooklyn College and Brooklyn Law School. He had been working at a law firm in Manhattan when the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the United States Army on December 8, 1941 and requested to be trained for combat. In August 1943 he joined the 418th Squadron of the 100th Bombardment Group, stationed at Thorpe Abbotts in England. He served as a pilot and aircraft commander of a B-17 Flying Fortress crew. In March 1944, Rosenthal's crew, nicknamed "Rosie's Riveters", with their B-17F, serial number 42-30758 bearing the same name, completed their 25-mission combat tour and returned to the United States. However, Rosenthal extended his tour, eventually flying a total of 53 missions. He later became commanding officer of the 350th Squadron. On his third mission with the 100th BG on October 10, 1943 over Münster, Rosenthal's was the only plane to return out of 13 B-17s. His plane had two engines dead, the intercom and the oxygen system non-functional, and a large ragged hole in the right wing. In September 1944, Rosenthal's plane was shot down over German occupied France. He broke his right arm and nose. He was rescued by the Free French and returned to duty as soon as he had healed. On his second to last mission on February 3, 1945, Rosenthal led a mission to bomb Berlin. Although his bomber was in flames from a direct hit, he continued to the target to drop his payload. He then stayed with the plane until after the rest of the crew had bailed out just before it exploded at only 1,000 feet altitude. He was recovered by the Soviet Army and again returned to duty. This raid also ended the life of Roland Freisler, the notorious "hanging judge" of the Third Reich's Volksgerichtshof. After the war, Rosenthal served as an assistant to the U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he interrogated Hermann Göring. Robert Rosenthal died on April 20, 2007 in White Plains, New York. |
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