Jewish Town Hall (Prague)

The Jewish Town Hall ( Czech Židovská radnice ) is a Baroque building in Prague's Josefov and Jewish seat of local government in Prague. It was built in the late 16th century.

Specifications

The Jewish Town Hall is located in the alley Maisel ( Maiselova ) 18, opposite the Old-New Synagogue in the former Jewish quarter of Prague. It is the High Synagogue adjacent and was formerly accessible from here. The present appearance of the building was in the years 1763-65 by renovation work under Josef Schwanitzer. The corner building has the appearance of a delicate late baroque palace, whose facade is richly structured. About the mansard roof rises a tower with handling and Rococo lattice. In the tower there is a clock with bell and Roman dial, while attached to the gable opposite the Old-New Synagogue another clock with Hebrew Dial whose pointer in the opposite direction from right to left run according to the writing direction of the Hebrew. Both clocks are connected to one and the same movement inside and were manufactured from the Prague royal court watchmaker Sebastian Laudensberger 1764. An extensive cultivation in place of two older houses in the alley Maisel was the town hall in 1908 by Matěj Blecha. In the representation hall of the ground floor there is a kosher restaurant.

History and use

The Jewish Town Hall was the seat of Jewish self-government in the Jewish Town, where the council of elders resided, who represented the community internally and externally. Here was also the rabbi court. A Jewish Town Hall was first mentioned in 1541 in Prague. 1577 was renewed and rebuilt after a fire under the then head of Mordechai Maisel community. This building dates, as well as the adjacent High Synagogue by architect Pankratius harvester from Italy. There was also a visible outward sign of that preferred position of the Jewish community. By a fire in 1689 it was again destroyed and re- built by the Prague Baroque architect Paul Ignaz Bayer. A third fire in 1754 followed the still existing construction of Josef Schwanitzer from the years 1763-65. Here, a commemorative volume was deposited in the tower, stating that the Jews spent city was rebuilt by a loan of 200,000 florins. The count-down clock was verses of the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire to a well-known symbol of Jewish Prague.

Today it hosts festivities for the holidays or weddings. The building is the headquarters of the Jewish community of Prague and the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic and the Prague upper and territorial rabbi and other religious, social, cultural, and social institutions of the Jewish community.