The first Jewish family settled in Myslkovice before 1650, but it is not known exactly when. In 1706, there were 3 Jewish families living here, 7 Jewish families in 1723, and 65 Jewish families (474 people, or 55% of the population) in 1850, the largest Jewish settlement in the history of the village. In 1890, there were 71 Jews (11%) and in 1930 only 2 people of Jewish faith.
The Jewish quarter is located in the western part of Myslkov-ice. Like in neighboring Tučapy, it consisted of two units separated by a pond. North of the pond stood a synagogue, south of the pond there was a hospital. Altogether, there were about 40 houses in both Jewish quarters, most of which are still preserved as reconstructions. House No. 90 with its old grating is interesting. The synagogue was probably built around 1770 and was connected with a Rabbi’s house. It was abandoned after 1930 and demolished around 1965.
The cemetery is 750 meters from the castle, at the edge of the forest along the marked hiking trail. It was founded in the first half of the 18th century, the time when the oldest gravestones come from. It was used for burials until World War II. The cemetery contains many valuable Baroque and Classicist tombstones. All that remains of the mortuary are the perimeter walls.
Interesting: The tombstones of Esterl, wife of Wolf Schönbaum, 1857, and Markus Schönbaum from 1872 are decorated with the motif of a mourning tree. This depiction is based on Jewish biblical tradition. The Bible contains the text “Deborah, the one who had nursed and raised Rebekah, died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Allon-bacuth” (Gen 35:8). For the Myslkovice tombstones, the tree motif is also the symbol of the deceased’s name.The tombstone of Šmuel, the representative of the Myslkovice Jewish community who died in the 1760’s, is decorated with a pomegranate motif whose seeds inform us of the date and the month of his death. The seeds of a sliced pomegranate symbolize the good deeds of the dead, as confirmed by part of the epitaph: he was “full of mitz-vah like a pomegranate”.