Opinion: The Prague Post Online

When they were not Jews

By Pavel Dostal

A Jewish rabbi came to see me from America. He did not have curly sideburns, or a wide hat, and he didn't even arrive in a black cloak. He was a dear and elegant man in a light-colored suit, a cream shirt and a colorfully blended necktie. He was a liberal rabbi and he would not stand out in a photograph like the Orthodox rabbis in black who now and then trespass on the private property of Ceska pojistovna, the Czech insurance company, so that they can be photographed there and show the world how the shameful Czech government is liquidating the "Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague."

The elegant rabbi from America came to see me to express his support in the matter of the "Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague." He knew that this was not the "Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague" in which the rabbi who thought up the golem rests in peace and quiet, as was intentionally and untruthfully presented abroad by Orthodox rabbis.

He came to tell me that it is not the whole Jewish world, as the Orthodox rabbis are conveying, but rather only a loud, critical minority of Jewish fundamentalists (including several from Prague) that regard the decision of the Czech government concerning the construction of a sarcophagus on the location of the long-destroyed Jewish cemetery as an act inconsistent with human rights. (There was even a comparison made with the Nazis.)

The American rabbi knew that it was not the Czech government but some Jagellons who purchased the cemetery plot in 1478 from the Prague Jewish Community, and from that time on buildings were built, torn down and built again -- and the Prague Jewish Community never batted an eye. They only did so when Ceska pojistovna started construction work on an administrative building -- based on a valid construction permit, after the completion of careful archeological research, and after the pious transfer of the remains for reburial at the Jewish cemetery in Zizkov.

At that time, I made a fundamental mistake. I did not politely share with Prague [Chief] Rabbi Karel Sidon that, even if it was his holy right to go to the site to protest, if he occupied private property he would have to count on the police taking him away. And even that they would use force. Even if a photograph of an Orthodox rabbi being carried off by a Czech policeman is a propaganda trick that has a reliable effect, especially in Jewish newspapers abroad.

I made a mistake in that, instead of strictly following Czech law, I began to negotiate with the Prague Jewish Community about an alternative solution to their demands, which were first of all the demands of Orthodox rabbis, and not at all the general Jewish demands.

Ceska pojistovna and the Czech government did their utmost to meet the demands of the Prague Jewish Community, even to the point that it will cost Czech taxpayers 45 million Kc ($1.2 million), and Ceska pojistovna roughly an additional 60 million Kc. Do the Orthodox rabbis have any idea how many devastated synagogues could be repaired and restored in the Czech Republic for that amount of money?

So much money will be dumped into cement because, according to Jewish custom, it is said to be impossible to move the bones of the buried. We respected this demand, and that is why we thought up the concrete sarcophagus. I have already seen photographs from American newspapers in which an Orthodox rabbi boasts of the bones that he says he took from Vladislavova street. Actually he stole them, because archeological remains are the property of the state, especially when they are a cultural monument. Not to mention that he himself broke the religious custom he proclaims.

The decision of the Czech government and Ceska pojistovna to comply to the utmost degree with the demands of the Orthodox rabbis has led at present to a completely negative result. The more orthodox of the Orthodox Jews are demanding the re-creation of a cemetery and a ban on any construction. The more moderate fundamentalists, to which even representatives of the Prague Jewish Community belong, are demanding access to the cement-enclosed skeletal remains and a ban on dance or theater above the cement monster in which will be laid to rest the skeletal remains coming unexpectedly from the period of the Premyslid dynasty.

I do not know why the Prague Jews imagine dance or theater must be specifically excluded above the skeletal remains that their ancestors sold to the Jagellons. But even if so, it is strange that it did not bother the Prague Jewish Community for 522 years that such things happened above the destroyed cemetery -- not until now. [It is] like the doctor showing up after the funeral, after the funeral more than half a millennium ago.

I do not know why the representatives of the Prague Jewish Community at present are again escalating their demands in the case of a Jewish cemetery already destroyed in the Middle Ages. When I complained to the writer Arnost Lustig that I don't understand at all the constant changes in the position of the Prague Jewish Community, this wise Jewish man responded that "it is because, unlike him, I did not know the present Prague Jews when they were not yet Jews."

The American rabbi smiled at this bon mot of Mr. Lustig's, drank the rest of his coffee and left. He did not even ask me if the coffee was kosher.

-- The writer is culture minister of the Czech Republic. This piece was written in Czech and appeared in the daily Pravo on July 14. This translation is printed here with permission.

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The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.