Harald Salfellner

While he hardly breaks new ground, Kafka's Prague being one of the most covered territory, this collection of the buildings and places in Kafka's life is highly engaging and beautifully illustrated. The early 20th century map at the front and the modern map of Prague at the back help to easily locate the actions of Kafka's life and also improve one's own mental model of Prague. The most surprising factor of Kafka's Prague was its already disappearing Germanic community. The larger and larger show more Czech community was replacing German street signs and starting to impose its language. After the First World War, Kafka as an AUVA government official had to suddenly shift to writing Czech texts, which Kafka both out of fear and perfectionism had proofread by a Czech mother tongue relative. Kafka's Prague is thus a twice lost city - a loss of both the Jewish and the German community. While modern Prague cashes in on Kafka tourism (represented with two museums!), the city is keen on forgetting its German past. Fortunately, this book preserves one of its aspects. show less

I picked this up during our Danube River cruise in October at the museum of the Old-New Synagogue in Prague, the second oldest active synagogue in Europe after the Rashi Synagogue in Worms, Germany (the birth town of Ruth's mother Edith before the War, and the setting of my novelette "Among the Faithful" published in 1632 & Beyond Issue #5, (2024)].

While the Rashi synagogue and the one-thousand year-old Jewish community of Worms has its remarkable grand, and tragic, history, the Old-New show more Synagogue and the Jewish community of Prague has its own -- and, in addition, the legend of the Golem. [Always great story fodder -- just ask Mary Shelley].

This is a delightful collection and translation regarding both the history of the Jews of Prague from ruins attributed to Jewish settlement at the time of the Second Temple, resettlement during the pre-Christian reign of Prince Hostivit in the 9th century BCE, the opportunities as loyal, protected subjects, and the tragedies of later Christian-led pogroms and plague, and the legends these produced of the wisdom, holiness, and resultant mystical gifts of the rabbis who sought to protect their ghetto community as a result -- the most famous being Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, "the Maharal of Prague" (1525-1609) and his creation the protector Golem. Additional tales, told in the manner of parables, of how streets and other Prague synagogues got their names, and how the community was saved repeatedly from pillaging and death, extol virtues such as humility, kindness, generosity, and sacrifice.

Extensively illustrated with old, alas uncredited, fine woodprint art, this was a delightful little, 64-page volume. show less

Bought in a museum in Prague, because I wanted to learn more about the legend of the Golem. I did not really get what I wanted from this book, as there are only two short and vague stories about the Golem.

However, those stories and all the others gave me a real sense of the Jewish Quarter's history, and vastly increased my appreciation and reverence for the things I saw on my trip. So really, it ended up being the book I needed.

This is a truly marvelous work, indispensable for any travelers to Prague who hope to seek sites that figured importantly in Franz Kafka's life. It is packed with photographs that show places where the Kafka family lived, where Franz went to school, where he worked, and places he frequented. Other photos are of Franz and his family, friends, schoolmates, and fiances. Also included are photos of the cover of Kafka's publications, his drawings and sketches, playbills, statues, and tombstones. show more Of particular value to travelers are the maps, that precisely locate the historical sites that figured in his life. I can only wish that I had this book before I visited Prague, as I would have been able to locate more of the sites that I was interested in finding. This book is highly recommended as a "literary history" to travelers to Prague as well as to armchair travelers who wish to see period photographs of the sites they have read about in the Kafka biographies. show less