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Jews have lived in the Czech lands for over a thousand years, sharing good or ill fortune with their fellow-citizens. In bad times they suffered more than the rest, worst of all during the Second World War of 1939 to 1945, when the German occupiers murdered something like four-fifths of all Jews living in the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic. In the inter-war period the religious and social lives of Jews had been developing along different lines in the "historic lands' on the one hand, and in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia on the other. In Bohemia and Moravia variously oriented groups of conservative and orthodox Jews strove to preserve religious traditions. A policy of assimilation was urged by the well-organised League of Czech Jews [Svaz Čechů-Židů), whose efforts to achieve greater religious toleration and civic freedom led them in the 1920s to identify with Czech national ideals. But this did not involve any rejection of the religious and ethical values of Judaism, witness, particularly, the career of one prominent personality of the League, Dr Augustin Stein, who was also an outstanding member of the Prague city council and president of the Council of Jewish Congregations.¹ Stein's published commentaries on the Pentateuch and his interpretations of Biblical texts in the original languages were an acknowledged contribution to understanding between the Jewish and Christian inhabitants of the Czech lands and can be compared with the labours of Moses Mendelssohn in researching the history of the Jews in Germany.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-10644-8_15

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