Old New Synagogue

Stand still for a moment and look down. The floor of this building sits lower than the street outside. You step down to enter, as if the city has slowly risen around it over the centuries. The air inside is cool and slightly dim. The light falls through narrow windows onto pale stone and dark wood. This is the Old New Synagogue in Prague's Josefov quarter, and it has served as a house of prayer for more than seven hundred years.

That makes it the oldest active synagogue in Europe. It was completed in the second half of the thirteenth century, around 1270. Prague was then a growing royal city under the Bohemian kings. A Jewish community had already lived here for generations, close to the bend of the Vltava River. Many buildings from that age have vanished, been rebuilt, or turned into ruins. This one still holds services, and people still pray here today.

The name sounds like a riddle. Old and new at the same time? The most common explanation is simple. When it was built, people called it the New Synagogue, or the Great Synagogue. Later, newer synagogues rose in the quarter, so the old new one needed a new name. Locals also tell another story. They link the name to a Hebrew phrase meaning on condition. According to this tale, angels brought stones from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem to build it, on condition that the stones return when the Temple is rebuilt.

Now look up. The style is early Gothic, the same style found in many medieval churches across Europe. Gothic means pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and a sense of height. Builders used these ideas to make stone ceilings seem light. Historians often suggest that the same masons worked on Christian buildings nearby in Prague, including the convent of Saint Agnes. If you look at the arches here, you can see that family resemblance in the pointed shapes and the careful stone ribs.

The main hall is divided into two aisles, a design called a double nave. Two tall octagonal pillars stand in the centre and carry the vaults. Here is a detail most visitors miss. Each section of the ceiling has five ribs, not the usual four. A four-rib vault forms a cross where the ribs meet. A common explanation is that the builders added a fifth rib so that no cross would appear above the congregation. Count the ribs yourself as you stand beneath them.

Between the two pillars stands the bimah. This is the raised platform where the Torah scroll is read aloud during services. A wrought-iron grille surrounds it, made in the late Gothic period. The ironwork is dark and delicate, with twisting shapes that catch the light from the windows. On the eastern wall, facing toward Jerusalem, is the Holy Ark, called the Aron ha-Kodesh. This is where the Torah scrolls are kept. Above it you can see carved stone decoration with leaves and vines.

Look at the walls and the small slit windows along the sides. Women did not sit in the main hall in traditional practice. Instead, they sat in rooms added along the outside of the building in later centuries. They followed the service through these narrow openings in the thick walls. Imagine listening to the prayers and the reading through stone, hearing the voices but seeing only a sliver of the room. These annexes are part of how the building grew around its medieval core.

Hanging inside the hall is a large red banner with a Star of David. Inside the star there is a small pointed hat, the kind Jewish men were once required to wear in parts of medieval Europe. The banner honours the Jewish community of Prague. It recognises their part in defending the city against Swedish troops in 1648, near the end of the Thirty Years' War. The emperor granted the community the right to carry this flag. It is an unusual mark of royal thanks.

Now for the most famous story connected with this place. In the sixteenth century, the great scholar Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel lived and taught in Prague. He is often called the Maharal. Legend has it that he made a giant figure from clay, called the Golem, and brought it to life to protect the Jews of the ghetto. In some versions of the tale, the Golem grew too strong and dangerous. The rabbi then took away its life and carried its body up into this synagogue's attic.

Locals still say the Golem rests up there. The attic is closed to visitors, and that only feeds the story. When you go back outside, look at the back wall of the building. You will see iron rungs set into the stone, climbing toward a small door high above the street. They lead to that attic. Nobody needs to believe the legend to enjoy it. But many visitors stop and stare at that door for a long time.

Inside, one seat is marked as the place where Rabbi Loew used to sit. By tradition, nobody else sits in it. This is one of the quiet ways the community keeps its memory alive. The synagogue also survived the Second World War, when the Jewish community of Prague suffered terrible losses during the Nazi occupation. The building remained, but many of the people who once prayed here did not. Standing here today means standing in a place that has carried both survival and grief.

Step outside again and look at the exterior. The most striking feature is the tall brick gable, stepped like a staircase on its sides. It was added later than the original stone hall and gives the building its sharp outline against the sky. Around it, the streets of Josefov show many grand buildings from around the year 1900. The old crowded ghetto was cleared and rebuilt then. That makes this small medieval synagogue look even older among its neighbours.

As you leave, take one more look at the dark roof and the brick gable. Notice how low the building sits compared to the street, and how its walls stand plain and heavy. Listen to the sounds of the quarter around you: footsteps, voices in many languages, perhaps a bell from a church nearby. For seven centuries, prayers have continued inside these walls. When you walk on, you carry a small piece of that long, unbroken story with you.