Ever since the 1980s, when, as a teenager, I led the High Holiday services at various country communities across South Africa, I have tried each year to find a congregation where I could continue this tradition. Over the decades this has brought me to Jewish communities in Johannesburg, Bulawayo, London, and Cardiff. The congregants in all these places spoke the same language and basically shared the same culture that I have always known. It was therefore with some trepidation that this year I accepted an invitation to conduct services in the city of Olomouc, Czech Republic. It was an opportunity to revisit a country I had last seen in the winter of 1995, and it would also allow me the unique opportunity of sharing the privilege of baal tefilla with my recently bar mitzvahed son.
Like many other Westerners, I had never heard of this small city, never mind its Jewish community. But my sense of adventure and curiosity convinced me that visiting Olomouc would have a positive impact. In the event, it was different to anything I had ever experienced, and left me with mixed feelings of awe, appreciation, empathy and not an insignificant dose of sadness and concern.
Olomouc is the Czech Republic’s sixth largest city with a population of 100,000, situated 250 kilometers from Prague. The tiny Jewish minority numbering less than 150 souls in fact constitutes the country’s third largest Jewish population. Prior to the Holocaust, the Jewish population of Olomouc numbered some 3,500 souls, most of whom perished in Terezin. While some Jews returned after the Holocaust and tried to revive Jewish life there, the community was only accorded official recognition after the fall of the then communist Czechoslovak regime and the return of true democracy.
The scars left behind by communism are evident in the city’s quaint town square. The astronomical clock, partially destroyed during World War II, was reconstructed in the Socialist Realist style. The saints that had previously adorned the clock were replaced with proletarian figures. Of course, much greater damage was done to the Jewish community. Although the city and the greater Olomouc region contained a few Jews, most of them were robbed of any Jewish identity or culture. Small wonder that those who remain there today are in the main products of mixed marriages, with some with Jewish mothers reclaiming their heritage, and others with Jewish fathers deciding to convert back to the faith of their forebears.
Up until the mid-2000’s, Olomouc’s Jewish community center, although possessing an impressive synagogue, did not even have the capacity to provide kosher meals, and was unable to provide much in the way of a Jewish communal life. All this changed when the very dynamic Petr Papoušek – who recently became head of the Jewish Federation of the Czech Republic – took over the leadership of the Olomouc Jewish community. Himself the product of a mixed marriage, Petr rediscovered his faith, and has been very active in restoring Jewish life to his hometown. Thanks to his efforts, the community now enjoys fortnightly Kabbala Shabbat services and provides free strictly kosher Shabbat meals to its members for a paltry annual fee of about 11 Euros.
Arriving at the Olomouc train station with my son just hours before Rosh Hashanah, I encountered a community made up of young and old Jews eager to continue some form of Jewish life. After delivering a few words of inspiration and appreciation of the Jewish New Year, and after conducting the evening services, we sat down to a well-catered meal attended by no less than 80 diners. Slowly I got to know a bit more about my fellow diners. But it was only over the course of Rosh Hashanah and after my return visit for Yom Kippur, that I really got to know the people who made up this special community. After leading the prayers with a full minyan for virtually all the services, I learned that this had not happened since the Holocaust
I learned that the kashrut supervisor, who lives 70 kilometers away in the picturesque town of Zlin, had only discovered his Jewish roots at the age of 24. He is married to a woman who had recently converted to Judaism, since both her grandfathers were Jewish. I also discovered another family made up entirely of converts, that lived a considerable distance from the city. The pater familias had studied theology at Charles University, where he concluded that Judaism provided the only satisfactory solution to his spiritual quest. The secretary of the community hailed from Moldova. Although she had not lived a Jewish life, and had not raised her two sons in the Jewish lifestyle, by some quirk her second son had ended up living a Hassidic lifestyle in Ramot, Jerusalem. Yet another resident of the town was born in the Ukraine and had married a woman from Moscow. Together they were leading a very religious lifestyle.
No less interesting is the fact that a number of gentiles who frequent the Jewish community building also attended services throughout the High Holidays. I was thus privileged to meet a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at Olomouc University who specializes in twelfth century Moravian Jewry. He shared some interesting facts about this period, and he told me that his department had a connection with Bar Ilan University. This November he intends to present a paper in Israel on some obscure Moravian rabbi who wrote Jewish fables in Hebrew.
In addition to the locals, Olomouc’s Jewish community is temporarily supplemented by foreign Jews who come to study or teach here. Thus it was that I met Israeli medical students who attended the Rosh Hashanah dinner and the Neilah service; I met a web designer from Philadelphia; I met a chemist from Tampa who is doing research at the university; and an ex-Israeli welding engineer now living in Boca Raton who was working in the Czech Republic for General Electric. Their attendance at the High Holiday services added to the eclectic mix this community enjoys.
Yet I have to admit to being plagued with many questions regarding this wonderful community. Though some young children are being educated by the wonderful e-learning project provided by the Lauder Foundation, most of the community are elderly. How much longer will this community continue to thrive? Will it be able to attract young Jews who will make Olomouc their home? How many other Olomouc’s are there in Eastern Europe? Why is there so little knowledge of these communities? Indeed, can anything be done to prevent the eventual disappearance of the Olomouc Jewish community? Should we even divert resources to a community whose future is so uncertain?
Along with discovering the raw beauty of an unknown community during this festive period of introspection, these painful questions continue to haunt me. These questions should trouble anyone who is concerned with the future of world Jewry.