David Klein and RNS reports that Rabbi David Maxa, who organized the Day of Atonement observance in one of Prague’s 17th-century synagogues, said the moment ‘is not just a revival of our prayers, but a powerful testament to the resilience and continuity of our Jewish tradition.’

On Saturday October 12 for the first time in more than 80 years, the city’s progressive Jewish community, Ec Chajim, hosted Yom Kippur services in its 330-year-old building.

Though not the oldest, Klausen is the city’s largest synagogue and the last standing example of baroque synagogue architecture in Prague, itself once a major center of European Jewish history. Its Jewish community yielded several notable figures, including novelist Franz Kafka and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In the 17th century, Klausen Synagogue was home to a school founded by Rabbi Judah Loew, more commonly known as “the Maharal,” a major rabbinic figure who today is mostly remembered for his association with the mythical golem of Prague, an earthly robot he allegedly created to fight back against antisemitic persecution.

The synagogue has largely been a museum since the Nazis decimated Czechoslovakia’s Jewish community in the Holocaust. Before this year the last services in Klausen were held in 1941. In October of that year, the Nazis began their deportations of Czech........

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