Enclosed in the heart of Staré Město is Josefov, the former Jewish town, one of the oldest and most important Jewish communities in the whole of the west.
The number of people living and working in this decidedly small district amounted at times to more than 7000. Several pogroms in different centuries decimated the population time and again, and laid waste the district. It was called Josefov in memory of Emperor Joseph II, who, at the end of the 18th century, was the first to elevate the Jewish ghetto, which had existed for 600 years, to a district of Prague with rights on a par with other districts.
