Jewish communities and sites in Bohemia and Moravia
In the thirteenth century, Jewish communities established themselves for the most part in fortified royal towns. Prague appears always to have been the largest and most influential example, but significant communities also arose in Brno, Cheb (Eger), Příbram, Plzeň (Pilsen), Jihlava (Iglau), Znojmo (Znaim), Olomouc, and elsewhere..
Until the middle of the fifteenth century, Jewish settlement patterns in the Bohemian and Moravian parts of the kingdom were predominantly urban and relatively small in size. Between the mid-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries, however, both the burgher estate and the nobility increased their economic and political strength and pressured the crown to relinquish control over the resources and the legal status of Jews. In consequence, the royal towns of the two lands (with the exception of Prague) succeeded in having their Jewish populations expelled. A combination of religious zeal and economic competition moved the burghers in four additional royal towns (Brno, Olomouc, Znojmo, and Uničov [Ger., Märisch-Neustadt]) to demand—and win—the expulsion of Jews. The sixth and last royal free town in Moravia, Uherské Hradiště (Ungarisch Hradisch), followed suit in 1514. By the early sixteenth century, then, no Jews were living in the royal towns of Moravia. A government census of 1724 indicated that the Jews of Bohemia were scattered among 800 localities, as many as 600 of which comprised small villages in which only a handful of Jews lived. Over the course of the next 125 years, this dispersed pattern of settlement seems actually to have become more pronounced. In 1849, Jews in Bohemia were living in 1,921 localities, only 207 of which formed communities of more than 10 families and a formal synagogue; 148 managed to assemble a minyan (quorum) for prayer on Sabbaths and holidays; the rest were too small even for that.
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Whereas Bohemian and Moravian Jewry had been predominantly rural and small town, modern Czech Jewry was decidedly urban. More than one-third of the Jewish population of Bohemia in 1910 lived in Prague; nearly 70 percent lived in towns of more than 10,000 people. Seven decades earlier, there had been 347 separate Jewish communities in Bohemia alone, only 22 of which had a population of more than 50.
Full article on the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia at the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.
The list of localities below with Jewish significance in Bohemia, Moravia and the former Austrian Silesia is found in the guide: Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia, written and compiled by Jiří Fiedler and published in 1991. A history of the Jewish settlement in Bohemia and Moravia by Arno Pařík is included.
