Travel Tip: Prague Old Jewish Cemetery, one of most important Jewish monuments in the country
Dear Steemit friends and followers,
Welcome to my Travel Tip series where I promote some of the most beautiful places, interesting landmarks and impressive architectural sites of my homeland, the Czech Republic.
Today, I would like to take you to one of the best known Jewish cemeteries in Europe, the famous Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.
Source: Flicker (Creative Commons)
Located in the Prague´s Jewish neighborhood of Josefov in the historic center of the city, the Old Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest and most important monuments of its kind in all Europe. With its origins dating back to the 15the century, the cemetery holds tens of thousands of graves (some sources even estimate the total number of graves to be over 100,000).
However, “only” some 12,000 tombstones are visible these days as a majority of the graves are buried deep under the ground. The reason for this “grave piling” is actually simple – the Jews were not allowed to bury their deceased family members anywhere else so the cemetery soon became overfill with graves. Therefore, new layers of soil had to be heaped up on the site many times so that new graves could be created there. Modern surveys revealed there is up to 12 layers of graves in some parts of the cemetery.
Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons)
Among all those thousands of graves of common people, there are also several that belong to very important historic figures such as the prominent Jewish poet Avigdor Kara or the famous Jewish mystic and philosopher Rabbi Low who is also the alleged creator of the legendary Prague Golem.
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Tomas
CEO & Founder of CGH
Ohhh, amazing! I really hope to visit Prague one day and I really love to see old cemeteries. What a fascinating history! Thanks for sharing this. :)
I am very happy to hear that! I am sure you are going to have a great time once you decide to come!
This place Prague Old Jewish Cemetery is definitely a monument of your land. Quite ancient with huge amount of graves make it dinguish fro other graveyards.
Muslims also buried their dead bodies like this that is why Jannat Ul Baqqih considered one among the most largest graveyards of the Muslims.
Thank you so much for spotting the light on this 15th century's Jewish Cemetery.
Stay Blessed Tomas :)
Thank you so much for stopping by and dropping a great comment... Have a great start to the week... Tomas
This is the place where every one of us is gonna come one day!
No one could escape this place, I pray for everyone.
Yep, absolutely right... we all share that destination....
YEAH,
We saw this today! Have been in Prague for 4 days, unfortunately back home tommorow and back to reality. There has been so much to do and see here!
Wow! That is great... I hope you took some good pics while in Prague so you can enter my Prague/Czech Republic photo sharing contest... Tomas
Maybe I shouldn't write this but... I like visiting cemeteries ;) especially old ones, but also when I'm visiting new country, so I'm adding this one to my list "place to see".
Nothing wrong with that I believe.... there is a special kind of a charm they have....
Original and beautiful, old Jewish cemetery in Prague.
great Tomas. best wishes of them.
wow,awesome place.i have a dream to visit here.im impressed.my eyes are not moving from the picture,,,really good one,,,,,wish you all the best,thanks
Heeej, super vidět dalšího Čecha tady v tom moři lidí!
Na tom hřbitově jsem byla tedy jen jednou, ale i tak to byla hezká procházka :)
Díky, že tu sdílíš krásy České Republiky!
cemeteries have always seemed to me dark, but seen so they are not so scary. Regards!