The Old-New Synagogue was built in the second half of the 13th century in the Gothic style. During its 750 years of existence, it has witnessed many turbulent events — pogroms and celebrations that shaped life in the Jewish ghetto. An old Prague legend recounts that the Old-New Synagogue was brought to the Jews of Prague by angels from their homeland. However, the angels strictly ordered that nothing about its appearance should ever be changed, which is why the exterior and interior of the synagogue have remained unchanged for centuries. Another legend tells that Prague Jews dug up the synagogue from a nearby hill, where it lay hidden under a layer of clay. The name of the synagogue — old, yet new — is said to originate from the legendary story of its rediscovery. In 1558, a fire engulfed the Jewish ghetto, but the Old-New Synagogue was miraculously spared. Legend has it that this was because of two doves which, at the moment when the fire was threatening the synagogue, settled on its roof and remained there until the fire was extinguished. It is said that they were two of those angels who had carried the synagogue from Jerusalem to Prague. The Old-New Synagogue | Source: Prague City Tourism, photo: Richard Horák The Old-New Synagogue has twelve windows, representing the number of tribes of Israel. The entrance is through a Gothic portal decorated with grapevines carved into the stone. From the dark vestibule, nine steps lead down to the main hall with a Gothic vaulted ceiling, whose walls are decorated with inscriptions in Hebrew. The spiritual legacy of Prague’s rabbi Jehuda Löw, also known as Maharal, lives on in the synagogue. His wisdom and knowledge of secret teachings earned him respect throughout the European Jewish community. According to legend, at the end of the 16th century, Rabbi Löw created a Golem, a living being made of clay, to protect the ghetto from threats and persecution. Once, when he forgot to remove the magic shem from the golem’s forehead, the Golem began to destroy everything around it in a fit of rage. After singing Psalms 92 and 93, which marked the beginning of Shabbat, the rabbi was forced to interrupt the service at the Old-New Synagogue and ran to remove the Golem’s shem. Upon his return, the rabbi began singing both psalms again, as if nothing had happened. This liturgical custom has been preserved in the Old-New Synagogue to this day. Rabbi Löw and his disciples are said to have hidden Golem’s lifeless clay body in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue. He then strictly forbade anyone from entering the attic. He even had the external staircase removed, so that the door to the attic, twelve metres above the ground, could only be accessed with a ladder. Despite this prohibition, the prominent Prague rabbi Jehuda Landau ascended to the synagogue attic sometime in the second half of the 18th century, but returned pale and shaken and once again forbade anyone from entering the attic. People have longed to unravel the mystery of the Golem for centuries. Prague journalist Egon Erwin Kisch also followed in his footsteps. During the First World War, Kisch, as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, found himself in the house of a poor rural Jew. The man impressed Kisch with his extraordinary knowledge of the former Prague Jewish ghetto and the creation of the Golem. After the war ended, Kisch, now a reporter for the Prager Tagblatt newspaper, decided to enter the Old-New Synagogue in 1920 to find the remains of the Golem. He obtained permission to enter from the Jewish community, and described his impressions in an article titled In the Footsteps of the Golem: “An iron support stretches across the entire width, a ladder secured with an iron clamp leads nine metres up to the roof ridge, an old chimney pipe and bricks are scattered round, next to a dead bird that died here alone, and boulders, with mushrooms of grotesque shapes growing on the beams. A bat hangs upside down from a log. (…) Gravel has lain for centuries between the deep, convex arches above the retaining wall. If the clay creation of the great Rabbi Löw is buried there, it will remain buried there until the Judgement Day. If he were to be exhumed, the house of God would collapse…” Egon Erwin Kisch did not discover the body of the Golem in the attic of the synagogue. However, he tracked down a rumour about three men who allegedly stole the Golem’s body from the attic of the Old-New Synagogue sometime in the 19th century and moved it to a house in one of the streets of the old ghetto. They tried in vain to revive the Golem in the cellar. When they finally accepted with their failure, they carried the clay Golem’s body in a coffin to the Jewish cemetery, to the place where the Žižkov television tower stands today. In the 1980s, Czech researcher Ivan Mackerle visited the Old-New Synagogue, searching for the Golem using a geological radar. However, he did not find anything unusual either. The story of the magical creature, the Golem resting in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue, thus still awaits its final resolution.