traveldk.com

The oldest grave is that of this poet and scholar, best known for his documentation of the pogrom of 1389, which he survived as a child.

Mordecai Maisel (1528–1601) was ghetto mayor during the reign of Rudolf II, and funded the synagogue that bears his name (see Maisel Synagogue).

The burial site of one of Prague’s major Jewish figures, Rabbi Jehuda Loew ben Bezalel (1520– 1609), and creator of (see The Golem).

A pupil of Rabbi Loew, Gans (1541–1613) was the author of a seminal two-volume history of the Jewish people. He was also an accomplished astronomer during the time of Johannes Kepler. His headstone is marked with the Star of David, after his name and his faith.

Mordechai Maisel also commissioned the building of the Klausen Synagogue on the cemetery’s northern edge. It now houses exhibitions on Jewish festivals and traditions.

Rabbi David Oppenheim was the first chief rabbi of Moravia, and later chief rabbi of Bohemia and finally of Prague, where he died in 1734.

The eastern wall of the cemetery holds fragments of Gothic tombstones rescued in 1866 from another graveyard near Vladislavova street. Further graves at another site were uncovered in the 1990s.

This elaborate tombstone marks the resting place of the so-called “Jewish Queen”, Hendl Bashevi. Her husband, mayor Jacob Bashevi, was knighted and permitted a coat of arms, seen on his wife’s gravestone.

Next to the Pinkas Synagogue) is a square gravestone where Mordechai Zemach (d. 1592) is buried with his son Bezalel (d. 1589). The name Zemach means “spring” in Hebrew.

Stillborn children, miscarried babies and other infants who died under a year old were buried in the southeast corner of the cemetery.