Internet anti-Semitism in the Czech Republic has tripled in the last year, a new report shows. The report, published by Prague’s Jewish community, has been compiled annually over the last 20 years, monitoring various genres of hate speech and hate crimes against Jews in the area. The report found this week that for 2012, 80 anti-Semitic Internet posts were found on Czech sites, compared to 17 to 30 per year for the previous five years. The report noted that recent political campaigns could be a …More

The campaign to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a man who saved hundreds of Jewish children in WWII is gaining momentum. A group of Czech schoolchildren began the movement to honor Sir Nicholas Winton, whose efforts in placing Czech-Jewish children with foster families in the UK saved the lives of 669 between 1938 and 1939. The schoolchildren want the Nobel committee to award Winton its top honor before it’s too late—the prize can only be granted to a living individual, and Sir Nicholas is already …More

The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague is more than a cemetery; it’s an archive. The cemetery is a 500-year-old testament to steadfast belief in the face of persecution and neglect. To visit the cemetery is to walk through the remains of what was once one of the world’s major centers of Jewish life. The Old Jewish Cemetery is located in what used to be the Jewish ghetto in Prague, an area named Josefov, and the cemetery reflects the old neighborhood. Josefov was a part of town with narrow streets and where …More

The Spanish Synagogue in Prague may be one of the world’s most beautiful shuls. It is certainly one of its most-visited. The synagogue, built in 1868, sat empty for two decades before it was restored and reopened on its 130th anniversary in 1998, and has quickly became a visit de rigueur for many tourists to the city. You’ll find the Spanish Synagogue located in Josefov, Prague’s old Jewish quarter—and formerly its ghetto—in the city’s Old Town. It is believed that Czech …More

Sitting in a brightly lit living room in Neve Ilan, a neighborhood of Jerusalem, six elderly Holocaust survivors reconnected to one another and their extraordinary past. Telling his tale, retired Hebrew University professor Dan H. Yaalon choked up when he thought about what he had left behind in his native Czechoslovakia. “I was 10 when my father passed away,” Yaalon said, through tears. “Then, just a few years later, I had to say goodbye to my mother, a widow, and depart for Denmark.” As …More

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned today that Iran has no plans of dismantling its nuclear program, accusing the Islamic republic of playing a “chess game.” Bibi addressed reporters in Prague after meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, saying the Iranian nuclear crisis is “the paramount issue of our time.” The comments come just days ahead of the P5+1 conference next week, in which world leaders will once more try to negotiate with Iran on its uranium enrichment …More

Madeleine Albright’s new book was released this week. In the memoir, the former-secretary of state shares the secret Jewish heritage her family kept from her, and revealing how she lost 25 relatives in the Holocaust. In writing the book, “Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948,” Albright researched her family’s past, uncovering details of her Judaism through papers and documents she had never seen before. Albright’s parents where Jewish exiles from …More