Old-New Synagogue

Before you is one of the oldest synagogues in Europe still in use. Its Gothic core was built in the second half of the 13th century, around 1270, and it has since survived fires, pogroms, the demolition of the ghetto at the end of the 19th century and the Nazi occupation.

1Why old and new?

When it was built it was called the New School, and later, as other synagogues went up, it became the Old-New. There is a more poetic explanation: in Hebrew «al tenai» means «on condition», and a tradition says angels brought stones from the Temple in Jerusalem on condition that they be returned when the Messiah comes.

2The Golem in the attic

Prague's most famous legend says that Rabbi Loew shaped a giant from Vltava clay, the Golem, and brought it to life with a sacred word to protect the ghetto. When the creature ran out of control, the rabbi took its life away and stored its body in the attic of this synagogue, where it supposedly remains to this day.

The synagogue and its seven centuries are history; the Golem in the attic is legend.

Historians have traced how the story became attached to Rabbi Loew in the 19th century and became popular in the early 20th. The attic is closed to the public, which has only fed the mystery.

3What to look for

• The iron rungs on the facade, leading to the attic door.
• The toothed brick gable, from the Gothic period.
• The Hebrew clock on the Jewish Town Hall, whose hands turn anticlockwise because Hebrew reads from right to left.