Jewish Town Hall (Prague)
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The Jewish Town Hall ( Židovská radnice in Czech ) is a Baroque building in the Josefstadt district of Prague and the seat of the Jewish municipal administration in Prague . It was built at the end of the 16th century.
Building description
The Jewish Town Hall is located at Maiselgasse (Maiselova) 18, opposite the Old New Synagogue in Prague's former Jewish quarter. It is adjacent to the High Synagogue and used to be accessible from here. The building got its current appearance in the years 1763–1765 through renovation work under Josef Schwanitzer. The corner building has the appearance of a graceful late baroque palace, the facade of which is richly structured. A turret with a gallery and rococo lattice rises above the mansard roof. There is a clock with a bell and a Roman dial on the tower, while another clock with a Hebrew dial is attached to the gable opposite the Old New Synagogue, the hands of which run in the opposite direction from right to left according to the direction in which Hebrew is written. Both clocks are connected inside to the same clockwork and were made by the Prague royal clockmaker Sebastian Laudensberger in 1764. In 1908, Matěj Blecha gave the town hall an extensive extension in place of two older houses in Maiselgasse . There is a kosher restaurant in the representation room on the ground floor .
History and use
The Jewish Town Hall was the seat of the Jewish self-government in Prague's Jewish City, where the council of elders resided, who represented the community internally and externally. The rabbinical court was also here. A Jewish town hall was first mentioned in Prague in 1541. In 1577 it was renewed and rebuilt after a fire under the then head of the municipality Mordechai Maisel . This building, like the neighboring High Synagogue, was built by master builder Pankratius Roder from Italy. It was also an externally visible sign of the preferred position of the Jewish community at that time. It was destroyed again by fire in 1689 and rebuilt by the Prague baroque master builder Paul Ignaz Bayer . A third fire in 1754 was followed by the building by Josef Schwanitzer from the years 1763–1765 , which still exists today . A memorial was deposited in the tower stating that the burned down Jewish town was renewed with a loan of 200,000 guilders. The backward running clock became a well-known symbol of Jewish Prague through verses by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire .
Today celebrations for the holidays or weddings take place here. The building is the seat of the Jewish Community of Prague and the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic, as well as the Prague Chief and Regional Rabbi and other religious, social, cultural and social institutions of the Jewish community.
literature
- Arno Pařík: Jewish Prague . Jewish Museum, 3rd edition, Prague 2005.
- Podiebrad, David D .: Antiquities of Prague's Josefstadt, Israelite cemetery, old-new school and other synagogues . Podebrady, Prague 1870
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 22.1 ″ N , 14 ° 25 ′ 7 ″ E