Jews settled here from the first half of the 14th century. By the 15th century there was a relatively large Jewish community here with a synagogue and a cemetery in front of the town walls. In December 1505, pogroms broke out and the Jews were expelled from the city.The later Jewish religious community was founded in 1859 and gradually increased until World War 2. In 1890, there were 969 Jews (3% of the population) living in the city, and 1138 Jews (2% of the population) in 1930.
The neo-Gothic synagogue built in 1887-1888 was destroyed by the Nazis in 1942; a memorial was unveiled in its place in 1992.
The most valuable Jewish monument is the cemetery, located on Pekárenská Street 2 kilometers northeast of the main square. It was founded in 1866 (until that time, Jews had been buried in Hluboká nad Vltavou) and used for burials until the end of the 1970’s. Today, there are around 400 tombstones preserved in the cemetery from the time of its foundation. The oldest tombstone is from 1868 and is inscribed to Leopold Fürth. One of the last people buried in this cemetery is the former Theresienstadt prisoner Hugo Hirsch (died in 1962). Some interesting personalities are buried in the cemetery, such as the regional Rabbi Adam Wunder (1817-1905), Rabbi Karel Thieberger (1869-1938), composer Rudolf Kende, high school professor Lev Herz (1893-1976), the mother of writer Norbert Frýd, Klára Friedová (died in 1935), and the parents of the doctor, writer, and artist Karl Fleischmann. The cemetery cottage now houses a permanent exhibition to the history of the Jews in the city. In the southern part of the cemetery there is a memorial to the victims of Nazi persecution from 1950 in the form of a sandstone tumba. The cemetery is not accessible.
Interesting: The medieval synagogue decorated with wall paintings was trans-formed into a Catholic chapel at the beginning of the 16th century; in 1566-1568 it no longer served for Christian worship and was subsequently rebuilt into an ordinary burgher house with a pub whose remains were demolished in 1908.