With the possibility of Europe opening up again later this year, we're offering readers an extended look at the series of profiles we did in our January 2021 issue with members of Prague’s Jewish community, starting with Rabbi David Maxa from Ec chajim synagogue.
Ec chajim is a new Progressive community, chaired by Anna Nosková, mostly made up of families with children, although our oldest regular is 95. I think it’s very important to create connections between generations. I myself want to listen to stories and memories of the Prague Jewish community. I spent a lot of time exploring Jewish life here in Prague before the war, how Jewish life looked when it was still something normal.
My father was a Holocaust survivor. My childhood emotion of being Jewish is very much connected to the past. We often visited my great-grandfather’s grave. This was what being Jewish meant to me. My father died when I was 11 and I wanted to know more about being Jewish. I decided to do Jewish studies at Prague’s Charles University. In the end it brought me to wish to become a rabbi.
Some had kept Jewish traditions even during communism, even though being Jewish was heavily stigmatised. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, people were free to discover more.
I sometimes compare our situation now to being 40 years in the desert. It took time to get the ‘slavery’ mentality out of people, all that frustration and fear. Communism has now been ‘away’ for 30 years, but there are still fears and frustrations, some stigmas which stayed with people, even more so because often being Jewish is not something people talk about at home.
For many Czech Jews, including myself, the enthusiastic and learned support of regular visitors from fellow Liberal communities overseas has been vital for our Jewish journey. It’s thanks to them, and Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein, Emeritus Rabbi of The Ark Synagogue, UK, and his wife Sharon, that I could make the connection that led me to know how to become a rabbi.
I spend a lot of time with the bar/bat mitzvah classes; it’s all very positive and brings me lots of optimism. But often I teach their parents who never had bar/bat mitzvahs; I’ve just officiated at a bat mitzvah of a mother and her daughter!
I’m very happy about future prospects as we have started to do a lot of interfaith projects. For example, I have a friend who’s a pastor and we teamed up with a Muslim colleague, who is a student of Islamology, now in the time of Corona to talk about humour and joy in faith from our different perspectives. I’m also very optimistic about our relationship with the Orthodox community because the Federation of Jewish communities in the Czech Republic is a place where all streams are recognised: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Progressive.
The Liberal synagogue organises educational events in English to give visitors the opportunity to connect with the community. Czech-speaking Jews come to English-speaking events and Prague is a centre of tourism and interest. Prague Jews say of themselves quite proudly that Prague is the European Jerusalem!
My wife Judita comes from one of the oldest Czech Jewish families. She’s related to [composer] Gustav Mahler. Her father was co-founder of Charter 77, a historian and survivor of Terezin, Auschwitz and Mauthausen; so Judita became a historian too. She helps me with programming children’s activities, education and pastoral care. My mum is cantorial soloist in the Jewish Liberal Union, also a music teacher and opera singer, originally with Prague’s National Theatre.
The rabbi’s cat is called Semicha (Ordination, pictured above) because she was my ordination present. She has her own Instagram profile. My toddler Rafael came to me recently with a towel that he’d put on like a tallit (prayer shawl), opened a book and started mumbling!
Interview by Judi Herman
Portraits by Karel Cudlín
Discover more about Prague’s Jewish community and history in the January 2021 issue of JR.