Old Jewish Cemetery

We visited the Jewish Cemetery independent of a guide as part of our self-guided tour of the Jewish Quarter in Prague. While we preferred the freedom of not having a guide, we were a little sad we didn't have one, as we wanted to learn more during our visit to the cemetery. The Cemetery is beautiful and moving, and a must-see site. However, there is no brochure or signs or anything to help give history of context as you are moving through. So either bring a guide or bring a guidebook, if that matters to you. That being said - a very worthy and beautiful place to visit. So quiet and serene (except the occasional less-than-respectful tour group). Note: entrance is included as part of the "Jewish Museum" ticket - you cannot pay to enter just this site. It is 500 czk for entrance to all the sites.

Beautiful, park like cemetery with old graves, beautiful statues, mausoleums right in the middle of the city. You won't even notice that a busy city life is going on right outside the walls of the cemetery. The cemetery is easy to reach by subway (red line), bus and tram. All of these stop at the flora shopping center and this is only a 2 minute walk away.

Well preserved cemetery with hundreds of tombstones surrounded by relatively modern buildings. You get to go around the Graves and if you familiar with the language you will be able to read some of the words written on the Graves. Although this is not the cheapest site seeing in Prague, this consider to be one of the "must see" when you visit Prague, and especially if you're in the Old Town.

Beautiful cemetery with old grave stones and surrounding buildings in a park setup. We had the pack that gives you access to it as well as several museum and synagogues of the Jewish quarter and we really enjoyed it!

Definitely without a doubt our favorite place in Prague, looks a bit unreal even , it is so creepy special and beautiful. When we were here there was little bit of fog just like in some kind of a horror movie. We could have spent here a lot of hours looking and photographing but we bought the combined ticket for all the Jewish places so we had to carry on. It is not allowed to walk near the graves and tombstones just along the path that goes around and a bit inside.

It is an incredible place where you can feel history. Historically, as the cemetery was in the ghetto it could not expand horizontally so it expanded in height with hundreds of ancient gravestones one next to another.

Definitely worth a visit while in Prague. While a bit overpriced, still a must-see at least once in your life. Lots of thought provoking history in this area.

A small Jewish cemetery.. Few synagogues.. If u haven't seen any synagogue or cemetery.. U can go once.. But dont expect much.. Again the entree fee is too much for that.. Again they have different other fee to visit other areas around..

It's Interesting, super old headstones. Very moving, would recommend visiting. Interesting look at history first hand.

The largest cemetery of its kind in Europe and probably one of the most important Jewish historical monuments in Prague, the cemetery served the Jewish population of the city from the early 15th century until 1786. The oldest gravestone is for Rabbi Avigdor Kara and dates to 1439. During the three centuries that the cemetery was in service, it was constantly out of space. As such, a new layer of soil was laid on top of the old. There are spaces here were as many as twelve layers of burials exist. Well worth your time to tour and photograph. Please be respectful of the deceased. [Review 12269 overall, 2053 of 2019.]

The largest Jewish cemetery in Europe is a must see in Prague. It is part of the Jewish Museum ticket experience. We had no line on a Tuesday at the Maisel Synagogue where we purchased our tickets. From as early at 1439 to 1786, thousands were buried in this historic Jewish cemetery. During these three centuries, space was a challenge leading to layering of graves and tombstones. At parts, up to 12 layers may exist, and 12,000 tombstones, which under Jewish custom cannot be destroyed, are stacked side to side and in tight rows. This explains why the cemetery is several meters above street level and retaining walls were built to contain the site, soil and graves, in place. The engravings on the tombstones help to give clues to personalities or professions of the deceased. A lancet may be a physician. A pair of hands may be a Cohen. A book may be a cantor. Definitely visit this historic cemetery.

A visit to the old Jewish cemetery is an eerie experience: used between 1487 and 1787, this small patch of land was the burial place of all the city's Jews and contains some 12,000 tombstones, packed in tight rows. Indeed, as was common practice at the time, extra soil was brought in so enable further burials to take place, so that the graves are probably 12 layers deep, and contain 100,000 burials. It is reputed to be the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe. The tombstones, despite the lack of space, are often quite impressive, some of the grander ones resembling beds, or the Ark of the Covenant. The cemetery is heavily wooded, giving it a shady, even dark aspect - not good late on a winter's day! The most notable burial here is that of Rabbi Loew (d. 1609), who is associated with the legend of the Golem. Arguably the first manifestation of an artificial person (in this case sculpted from clay), it gave rise to the concept of the robot. Souvenir shops sell toy clay Golems as mementoes throughout the city.

Not many cemetaries charge admission. In fact, this is the only one I've ever visited that does. When I visited, walking through the grounds was hurried as it was packed with people on the narrow footpath. Informational placards were glaringly absent - one of the things I would expect from a paid admission experience. The tombstones are packed closely together and look like they are being pushed out of the earth in random directions. But overall, I didn't think it was worth the cost of admission and would firmly place this in the "skip-it" category when visiting Prague.

I kind of feel like a bad human giving this place three stars. But really, it was a pretty bad experience. I waited in line for over an hour, made it 5 people from the front, only to have the woman at the ticket counter unceremoniously close her window and disappear. Then a guard comes up, tells us that it's time for her lunch break and that if we want tickets we need to go to the info center around the corner. Cue the chaos of everybody hustling to get to the new checkpoint, and suddenly I'm 30 people back again. That makes me a mad Matt. It's just not how one should run a business, which really this is. But I guess from my experience, you all can learn that you don't have to deal with the huge line in the first place, and can circumvent it with a trip to the visitor's center. #themoreyouknow ANYHOW, once I was in, it was a pretty intense experience. I don't know a lot about the Jewish experience in WWII-era Prague, and frankly this museum didn't offer a ton of opportunities for education (a trend I noticed throughout Prague, actually). However, seeing those walls covered in thousands upon thousands of names, it certainly makes you feel something. The cemetery itself was also quite stirring, and at times I felt myself feeling guilty for appreciating the space for it's aesthetic qualities. I guess it's worth a visit, particularly if you have a cultural connection.

It was very impressive and unreal. It took some time before we got in. They only sell combined tickets so you also have to pay for the other buildings. You also have to pay a fee if you want to take pictures but no one checked if you had the permission or not.

We were stopped by the Jewish private security and they started asking questions, just because one of us was Arab. Nowhere in Europe was he treated like that. Really racist.

We waited in line for more than 30 minutes just to be told that the ticketing window doesn't accept credit card. They really should have posted this somewhere, and it really isn't very reasonable considering the combo tickets (you have to buy a number of combinations even if you only want to visit one site) they sold were quite expensive. It would have taken a sizable chunk of our cash for the weekend.

Kind of expensive... 300 Korunas for seeing an old church and the old cemetery + a few other small exhibitions, seems over the top, when comparing to the general price level in prague. However it is something I would recommend to see.