A new issue of the journal Judaica Bohemiae (Vol. 56/2021, 1) came out at the end of June 2021. It starts with a study by Daniel Soukup (Anti-Jewish Rhetoric of Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Legislation and Jews in the 14th-Century Bohemian Lands), which deals with anti-Jewish rhetoric of the Late Middle Ages and explores in detail how the Jewish community in the Bohemian lands was perceived in ecclesiastical works from the time the Archbishopric of Prague was established. In the next paper, Marie Buňatová (Jewish Goldsmiths in Early Modern Prague: A Paper on Immigration, Labour Mobility, and Socio-Economic Relations in 16th-Century Prague Jewish Society) provides a comprehensive view of the goldsmith’s trade in Prague during the 16th century and describes the conditions under which Jews were allowed to engage in this profession; it also looks at the involvement of Jewish goldsmiths in other financial transactions and examines the broader cultural and social framework of their lives. The next paper by Zdeňka Stoklásková (Silent (In)Tolerance? Jewish Academics in the Office of Rector at the German University of Prague before 1933) analyzes the circumstances surrounding the election of Jewish scholars to the office of Rector at the German University in Prague and draws attention to the problems they had to face because of their religion.
In the Reports section, a paper by Michaela Sidenberg, Iveta Cermanová and Jana Šplíchalová details the concept, content and form of the new permanent exhibition of the Jewish Museum in Prague, Židé v českých zemích, 19.–20. století (Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th–20th Centuries) at the Spanish Synagogue. This is followed by a report by Arno Pařík, which focuses on the reconstruction of the Baroque rural synagogue in the Moravian town of Police, and a report by Lenka Matušíková on the exhibition ‘Translocation Plans of Jewish Settlements in the 18th Century’, which was held by the National Archives in Prague in the autumn of 2020.
The final section of the journal contains reviews of the following books: Jakub Hauser and Eva Janáčová (eds.), Obrazy nenávisti. Vizuální projevy antisemitismu ve střední Evropě (Imagery of Hatred. Visual Antisemitism in Central Europe; reviewed by Ivana Ebelová) and a Czech edition of Peter Hallama’s Nationale Helden und jüdische Opfer. Tschechische Repräsentationen des Holocaust (Národní hrdinové a židovské oběti: Holokaust v české kulturní paměti; reviewed by Alena Heitlinger).