The happenings of Tuesday September 10, 2024 through Wednesday September 11, 2024 in Prague, Czechia
Having received our yellow fever vaccines the day before, we kept the day fairly calm per doctor’s orders. According to the doctor, 80% of recipients show some kind of symptom. However, I am certain she meant 20%, since that is what the internet, including reputable websites, says. Either way, we spent most of the day doing schoolwork just in case.
About 2:00PM we took a stroll to Letná Park. Showing absolutely no symptoms, the boys were excited to have an opportunity to run around. We hit up every climbing structure and exercise feature available, enjoyed the trampolines inset into the ground by a coffee shop, and the swings, before heading into the enclosed playground. Of particular interest were the balancing challenges. Turns out we all need to work on our core and balance skills. Later, I created a basketball skills practice set for Eitan, using a jump exercise challenge structure set up right next to two columns of trees that just happened to be set apart in similar style to the lines on a basketball court. He had a field day. Feeling energetic myself, I impressed the boys with a pullover on one of the chin-up bars. I might be forty-two, but I still have a few party tricks up my sleeves.
Chaim met up with us before we headed home for dinner where Amichai decided to DJ for us all evening. Dance parties and singalongs in our family are frequent. As sappy as it might sound, the evening shenanigans reminded me of that old adage “Home is where the heart Is.” In that moment I understood how our home is truly wherever we are, as long as we are together.
The next day, we took a tour of Jewish Prague with the wonderful Michaela Efrati. She kept the tour perfectly balanced for the adults and the kids in our family, regaling us with interesting facts, ghost stories of the golem, and addressing the community’s experience during the Holocaust candidly and delicately.
The Jewish community in Prague has an almost uninterrupted 800 year history, excepting expulsions that lasted for a few years at a time. As with other European cities, the Jewish community fell victim to several pogroms and persecution. However, the synagogues and community escaped Nazi destruction because they had decided Prague would be the location of a museum dedicated to what they had expected would be the extinct Jewish people. Many of the items found in the museum today were confiscated or stolen by the Nazis during WWII. Just like in Berlin, the boys appreciated seeing items that they recognized from our home and traditional life.
In the 16th century, the Maharal (Rabbi Judah of Loew, chief rabbi of Prague who lived 1525-1609) created a golem to protect the Jewish citizens of Prague from persecution. In Jewish folklore, the golem is a humanoid made out of a clay mold and given life through the recitation of specific incantations - although most Jewish sources focus on the practice of daily living as a Jew, Kabbalah is a genre that devotes time to the mystical and supernatural, and is where the creation of the golem is discussed. As a child, I read and heard stories of the golem in school and in synagogue. Seeing the small clay model in the museum was something else. As we sat in the Maharal’s Old New Synagogue, which hasn’t changed much in 800 years, Michaela joked that the golem was really the first AI concept. I marveled at how such a small object could create such a sense of hope, fear, and security for a community.
In the New Old Synagogue, we learned how the Jewish community earned two banners from King Charles IV after fighting on his behalf. On the banners are a magen David (star of David), often considered to be the first time it was used as a Jewish symbol. In many ways, the synagogue still looks the same as when it was built. High ceilings, clay walls, the rules of the Maharal on the wall, seats along the wall, a vault to collect taxes demanded by the king. In other ways, the space was very much a part of the present. Pictures of all of the hostages from October 7 were all around the main sanctuary, a small space for children to play in the very tiny women’s section, and flood line markers detailing how much of the shul had flooded during the last big floods.
Michaela brought us to the cemetery where the Maharal and the Kli Yakar are buried. I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure this was their first time in a cemetery - at least at an age when they might remember what it was like. It provided the opportunity to teach them Jewish traditions. When visiting a cemetery, for example, we place stones, not flowers, on the headstones and wash our hands upon exiting.
One of the highlights of the tour was trying the only kosher Trdelník treats in Prague. Trdelník is fried dough shaped into a cone and filled with ice cream or whipped cream and topped with caramel or baked apples. It’s an entire experience for the tastebuds. Many of the Trdelník shops around the city claim Trdelník as a Prague original. We had already been told this is not the case and that it came from Hungary. However, Michaela told us even that was untrue. According to Michaela, Trdelník is originally from Romania. We had two lessons in that moment: 1) the history of food can be an exciting exploration of human history and changing territories, and 2) just because claims are made by locals does not make them true. Interestingly, the owners of the shop are not Jewish. After years of observant Jewish tourists asking if they were kosher, the owners looked into what it would take to receive kosher certification. It is easy to make Trdelník kosher since there is no meat involved. The owners received their kosher certification and have been supporting kosher keeping tourists ever since.
After our tour ended, the boys and I returned home while Chaim went back to work. We spent the rest of the day doing our schoolwork and enjoyed another dance party with Eitan as DJ.
