Patrick Comerford
I have been to Prague a number of times and, like every visitor with an interest in Jewish history, I have walked through the streets the Josefov and visited seven of the city’s synagogues, the Jewish Museum, the Ceremonial Hall for funerals, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the grave of Rabbi Löw, the Maharal. I have listened to the stories of the Golem and I have searched out the many sites associated with Franz Kafka.
The synagogues I have visited in Prague include the Old-New Synagogue, the High Synagogue, the Maisel Synagogue, the Klausen Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue and the Jerusalem Synagogue.
But in recent weeks, as I was researching the genealogy and story of Lyela Julia Edelman Brandeis Comerford (1880-1946), I came across the stories of the Jewish quarter in Libeň, and a forgotten Jewish community and synagogue in Prague that are almost totally unknown to the millions of tourists who visit the Czech capital each year. They all visit the Charles Bridge, but how many of them know of the Libeň Bridge?
Lyela Brandeis Comerford was the second wife of Judge Frank D Comerford (1879-1929), a son of Isaac Comerford from Co Galway, and he was her third husband. She was a granddaughter of Rabbi Abraham Wolf Edelman (1832-1907), the first resident rabbi in Los Angeles, a niece of both the architect and a president of the best-known synagogue in Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, and she was a sister-in-law of one of the passengers who died on the Titanic in 1912.
But Lyela’s links with the Jewish community and synagogue in Libeň come through her first husband, H Hugo Brandeis (1868-1912). He was the son of Jonas Leopold Brandeis (1836-1903), a dry goods merchant, and Francesca Teweles (1845-1905), both Jewish emigrants from Prague to the US.
The Brandeis family was once a prominent rabbinic family in Prague. The extended family included the Dante scholar Irma Brandeis (1905-1999); and Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), an associate justice on the US Supreme Court (1916-1939), who gave his name to Brandeis University.
Judge Louis Brandeis was the first Jew to be named to the Supreme Court. During his career, he fought railroad monopolies, defended workplace and labour laws, challenged antisemitism and helped create the Federal Reserve System. He was a courageous and militant advocate of social justice. He was seen as being incorruptible, was known as the ‘People’s Lawyer’, and The Economist called him ‘A Robin Hood of the law.’
Jonas Leopold Brandeis was from Libeň in Prague, then in the Austrian empire and now the capital of the Czech Republic. Franciska ‘Fannie’ Teweles was born in Prague. They emigrated to the US around 1856 and were married in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, around 1862.
The Jewish quarter in Libeň was the second most significant Jewish settlement in Prague and was second only to the Old Town of Josefov. It stretched between today’s streets of Voctářova, Kozelužská, Vojenova and the now lost streets of Jirchářská and Kožní.
Jews probably began to settle in that area in the early 16th century after Jews were expelled from king’s towns in 1541 and 1557. The old synagogue in Koželužská Street stood at the very centre of this Jewish settlement and it dated from 1592. The Jewish community had its own cemetery near the Libeň Bridge and its own self-government building.
The Jewish district in Libeň was greatly extended in the first half of the 18th century, when the Jews expelled from inner Prague by Maria Theresa moved there.
The original small synagogue was in use for two centuries before it was rebuilt in 1770. But Libeň was frequently hit by floods, and the synagogue, which stood in an area that was hardest hit, became unfit for use. After a particularly severe flood in 1845 the authorities proposed demolishing the synagogue.
The Jewish community bought a new site, and the foundation stone of a new synagogue was laid on 23 November 1846 in a ceremony attended by the Archduke Stephen of Habsburg, the last Palatine of Hungary.
The new synagogue was consecrated and officially opened 12 years later, in 1858. It was built in the neo-Romanesque style with Moorish elements. It was a two-storey, three-aisle building with a rectangular ground floor and saddle roof. The original façade had distinctive decorative stucco with a core design lining the crown ledge and both gables.
The west front has a three-section high entrance with three portals beneath a large rounded top window that once had rich stucco decorations, including the Ten Commandments and the Star of David at the top. The east façade has a round window a six-pointed stucco star filled with coloured stained glass. The façade was simplified in the 1930s.
Inside, the foyer leads into the main worship area and two solid newel staircases facing each other lead to the upper, women’s balcony that runs along three sides.
The main interior area is arranged in three aisle styles with the two side upper balcony arcades placed atop five huge pillars, and a four-section dome. The walls and pillars were decorated with a painted marble imitation, and parts of the stucco décors have a festive polychrome colour dominated by blue and green.
The elevated Bimah shows traces of the place for a Shulchan or table for reading from the Torah, and a decorated railing at the edge.
The wooden Aron haKodesh or holy ark for holding the Torah has slim side columns and a semicircular extension with a gold Hebrew sign and the Star of David at the centre. Underneath, a series of embossed symbols are reminders of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. A gold-plated carved Crown of David is at the top.
During World War II, the Jews in Libeň were gradually deported to concentration camps. The synagogue was forcibly closed in 1941 and, like many synagogues in the Czech Republic, was converted into a warehouse storing confiscated Jewish property.
The decimated Jewish community was never revived in Libeň after the war, and there was a new wave of antisemitism in the post-war years. The synagogue fell into further dilapidation and was used first as a produce warehouse and later to store the props of the nearby SK Neumann Theatre, later the Pod Palmovkou Theatre.
The old Jewish cemetery was destroyed, as was the building with the rabbi’s residence and administrative offices. Several blocks in the area were taken down in the immediate vicinity of the synagogue in the 1980s to make way for building the B line metro stop Palmovka. The synagogue itself was removed from the demolition plans only at the last minute.
The synagogue was returned to the Jewish Community in Prague after the political upheavals in 1989, and once again is known as the Synagogue in Palmovka or Libeň Synagogue. Since 1995, the building has been used regularly by the Serpens Association for cultural and social events, including artistic, theatrical and musical events.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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