The Spanish Synagogue will welcome its last visitors today

Prague - The Spanish Synagogue in Prague will welcome its last visitors today. From June 1, it will be closed for about a year and a half due to planned modernization of its exhibitions and facilities. People will be able to visit it again in the last quarter of next year. The synagogue is part of the visitor circuit of the Jewish Museum and is one of the most visited places in Prague.

The modernization has been in preparation for the last two years, and work will begin in July. For the Jewish Museum, this is the fourth similar project. In the previous five years, it renovated the Pinkas and Maisel Synagogues and opened an Information and Reservation Center. The aim of transforming the permanent exhibitions is to adapt to current trends in museum presentations, technical capabilities, and visitor expectations.

The synagogue currently has a permanent exhibition titled The History of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia in the 19th - 20th Century, which was created during the first significant reconstruction of the building from 1994 to 1998. It traces the fates of Jews in the Czech lands from the Josephinian reforms to the post-war period and also addresses the transformation of the Jewish town, giving special attention to the Holocaust and the Terezín ghetto. The new form of the permanent exhibition, tentatively titled Jewish Emancipation, Shoah, and Post-War Czechoslovakia (1780 - Present), will thematically build on the current exhibition.

During the modernization, rare collection items will be rearranged, and multimedia and interactive elements will be included. Interested visitors will be able to browse historical documents on touch screens, view photographs and artworks, or search a database of significant Jewish personalities. The modern exhibition will also have new technological and visitor facilities with barrier-free access.

The Spanish Synagogue is among the most visited sites in Prague. In 2017, it was visited by 462,000 people. It is the youngest synagogue in the Jewish town of Josefov. It got its name due to its impressive interior decoration in the Moorish style, inspired by the famous Spanish Alhambra. It was dedicated 150 years ago. It was built as a temple for the Society of Reformed Cult on the site of the Old School - the oldest prayer house of the ghetto from the 12th century. During the German occupation, the Spanish Synagogue became a warehouse for items confiscated by the Nazis from Czech Jews. Since 1955, the building has been managed by the Jewish Museum.