Why go

Josefov, the old Jewish Town between Old Town Square and the river, was home to one of the largest and most important Jewish communities in Europe for centuries. Most of its crowded streets were cleared around 1900, but its synagogues, town hall and cemetery survived, and today the Jewish Museum in Prague cares for most of them. A single ticket opens a remarkable series of buildings that tell the history of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia, from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust and beyond.

It is one of the most moving places to visit in the city. Allow time, walk slowly and take in each site, because the stories here stay with most visitors long after they leave. The museum was founded in 1906, and its collections are among the richest of their kind in the world, which is why even a short visit feels both intimate and very large in scope.

What to see

  • The Old Jewish Cemetery. Thousands of weathered gravestones lean together under the trees, layered over centuries of burials, including that of Rabbi Judah Loew.
  • The Pinkas Synagogue. Its walls carry the handwritten names of nearly 80,000 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia murdered in the Holocaust. Upstairs, drawings by children held in the Terezín ghetto are on display.
  • The Spanish Synagogue. A 19th-century synagogue in the Moorish style, its interior covered in gilded patterns.
  • The Maisel and Klausen synagogues. Exhibitions on Jewish history in the Czech lands and on traditions and customs.
  • The Ceremonial Hall. A small building by the cemetery that once served the Jewish Burial Society.

Plan your visit

The museum is open every day except Saturdays and Jewish holidays. From 18 October to 31 December 2026 the sites open from 9am to 4.30pm, with an early close at 2pm on 24 December, and on 1 January 2027 they open from 11am to 4.30pm. In spring and summer they stay open until 6pm or 7pm.

An adult ticket costs 600 CZK, students under 26 pay 400 CZK, children aged 7 to 15 pay 200 CZK, and children up to 6 go free. Tickets are sold at the museum’s ticket offices, at the Visitor Centre at Maiselova 15 and in the museum’s e-shop, and guided tours and audio guides are available. The Old-New Synagogue, the oldest working synagogue in Europe, is run by the Jewish Community of Prague and needs a separate ticket.

Allow two to three hours. The cemetery and the Pinkas Synagogue are busiest from late morning, so start there when the doors open. Men are asked to cover their heads in the synagogues, and paper kippahs are provided. Bags may be checked at the entrances, and photography rules differ between the sites, so look for the signs as you go in.

Nearby

Old Town Square and the Astronomical Clock are five minutes’ walk south along Pařížská. The Rudolfinum concert hall stands by the river a few minutes west, and Charles Bridge is about ten minutes away. The Old-New Synagogue and the Jewish Town Hall, with its clock whose hands run anticlockwise, stand on Červená Street between the museum sites.