Throughout the last thousand years there have emerged over 600 Jewish communities in what is now the Czech Republic. According to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia had a Jewish population of 356,830.
Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The 16th century was a golden age for Jewry in Prague. One of the famous Jewish scholars of the time was Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal, who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life. He is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov and his grave, with its tombstone intact, can still be visited. In 1708 Jews accounted for one quarter of Prague’s population.
The Second World War was a period of brutal oppression. The Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia (117,551 according to the 1930 census) was virtually annihilated. Many Jews emigrated after 1939; approximately 78,000 were killed. By 1945 some 14,000 Jews remained alive in the Czech lands.
As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic. The umbrella organization for the Jewish communities in the country is the Federation of Jewish Communities (FZO).
