Center and Periphery: Jews of the Bohemian Crown Lands in the Early Modern Period

No longer derided as the "late Middle Ages," the early modern period has been at the center of some of the most exciting Jewish historical scholarship of the past generation. Historians now see this period as witnessing the birth of new forms of communication, intellectual exchange, connections to the Christian/Jewish "other," and more. For the area referred to as "Ashkenaz" however, scholarship has traditionally opposed a western, German model to an eastern, Polish model of Jewish life. Prague and Bohemia, as contemporaries were well aware, fit neither. This paper will outline the remarkable character of Jewish settlements in these areas, including that of Prague, home of the largest urban Ashkenazi Jewish population. Beginning with mythology and scant evidence of medieval beginnings, it will consider growth of these communities in the sixteenth century, patterns of mobility, communal organization, Jews and the state, Jews and non-Jews, religious and cultural life and commemorative practices. Mythical Prague of the Maharal will meet the reality of life under Habsburg rule. The paper will then survey major developments in Czech Jewish history throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, setting the stage for Benjamin Frommer’s examination of the World War II period.

All told, Bohemia lay in the geographical heart of Europe—and during the Rudolfine period at its civic and cultural heart as well—and yet often seems an afterthought in contemporary historiography. This paper seeks to set in motion a reconsideration of that view. Subsequent papers will take up where it leaves off.