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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