Old Jewish Cemetery

What it is

The Old Jewish Cemetery lies behind a wall in Josefov, the former Jewish Town of Prague, and is one of the oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds in Europe. The Jewish Museum in Prague, which administers it, gives its years of use as 1439 to 1787 and counts more than 12,000 tombstones standing on the ground today. That number understates the burials. The ghetto could not expand and Jewish custom forbids disturbing a grave, so soil was brought in and new burials were laid above the old ones, by some researchers' reckoning up to ten layers deep. This is why the place looks the way it does: a small walled plot lifted well above the pavement outside it, with stones leaning into one another because the ground beneath them kept rising. The museum notes that in Hebrew a cemetery is often called beit chayim, house of life. Nothing may be removed from the ground here, and the museum records that even a dog lies buried in it, having once been thrown over the wall. The cemetery has no gate and no ticket of its own. It is one stop on the Prague Jewish Town circuit, entered from Široká 3 beside the Pinkas Synagogue.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

The path through the cemetery is fixed and narrow, and what a visitor reads from it is the stones themselves. The museum sets out two broad periods. Fifteenth and sixteenth century markers are dark sandstone slabs with deeply cut Hebrew inscriptions; from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries come white and reddish brown marble, lettering in relief, ornate carving, and after 1600 the monumental tomb chambers known as ohels, carrying long epitaphs on the wisdom, charity and public service of the person beneath. The carved symbols are a key rather than decoration. A crown stands for wisdom, grapes and the pomegranate for abundance, hands raised in blessing for the Kohanim, a pitcher for the Levites. Tools name a trade: scissors, a lancet, a book, a violin. Delicate figures mark the graves of young girls, and winged lions and griffins are there to protect. Animals also pun on surnames, a lion for Loew, a deer for Hirsch, a wolf for Wolf, a bear for Baer, a fish for Fischel, a goose for Gans. Many inscriptions close with the five letters T.N.C.H.V. The named graves include David Gans, David Oppenheim, the printer Mordecai Katz, and the Renaissance tomb of Rabbi Loew, the most visited stone in the cemetery.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

The museum answers this itself: the visit usually takes thirty minutes. That is honest for the cemetery alone, because the route is a single fixed path with no rooms to enter and no detours, and thirty minutes is enough to walk it slowly and stop at the tomb of Rabbi Loew. Thirty minutes is not enough for the day the ticket actually buys. The same admission covers the museum's synagogues, the path out of the cemetery emerges beside the Klausen Synagogue and the Ceremonial Hall, and most visitors continue straight into them. Treating the whole Prague Jewish Town circuit as a half day rather than an hour is the realistic plan, and the museum makes that easier by keeping individual and family tickets valid for three opening days, so the circuit can be split across two mornings. Two constraints shape the timing. Ticket sales stop thirty minutes before closing, so a late arrival can find the ticket office shut while the gate is still open. And the audio guide, if it is taken, runs about two hours across eighty stops for the whole circuit, which is a commitment to make at the start rather than at the cemetery entrance.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Season and crowds

The cemetery keeps the hours of the museum's own sites, and they move with the season. For 2026 the museum publishes 9.00 to 16.30 from 2 January to 31 March, 9.00 to 18.00 through April, 9.00 to 19.00 from 1 May to 31 August, 9.00 to 18.00 from 1 September to 17 October, and 9.00 to 16.30 from 18 October to 31 December. On 24 December it closes at 14.00, and on 1 January it opens late, 11.00 to 16.30. There is no midday break. The museum is closed every Saturday and on Jewish holidays; the dates it lists for 2026 are 2, 3, 8 and 9 April, 22 May, 13, 21 and 27 September and 4 October. A Saturday visit to Prague therefore has to plan around this, and it is the single most common way to arrive at a locked wall. For the hour, the museum names 11.00 to 15.00 as its busiest window and recommends the early morning or the later afternoon instead. Nine o'clock in the low season is the best of it: the stones face a low sun and the path is briefly empty.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

One ticket covers the whole circuit, and there is no cemetery only ticket. The museum's published prices are 600 CZK for an adult, 400 CZK for a student under 26, 200 CZK for a child aged 7 to 15, free for children up to 6, and 100 CZK for a disability card holder, whose assistant is admitted free on a ticket collected at the Visitor Centre on Maiselova 15. Holders of the annual Lítačka coupon pay 420 CZK, or 280 CZK at the discounted rate. The Prague Visitor Pass and the Prague CoolPass admit their holders free, once per site, as do AMG, ICOM, UHS and Union of Museums in Slovakia cards on presentation; all of these are issued only at the Visitor Centre. Tickets are sold online and at the ticket offices in the Spanish, Klausen, Pinkas and Maisel Synagogues and at the Visitor Centre. For individuals and families a ticket stays valid for three opening days, with each site enterable once; for groups of six or more it is valid on the day of issue only. Two extras are priced separately: an audio guide at 290 CZK and the historical mikvah at 80 CZK.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The entrance is at Široká 3 in Prague 1, in the old Jewish Town between Old Town Square and the river, and no car is needed to reach it. The museum gives Staroměstská as the nearest stop, served by metro line A, trams 17 and 18 and buses 194 and 207, and puts it three minutes' walk from its sites. On foot it is five minutes from Old Town Square and ten from Charles Bridge, so anyone already walking the historic centre is close enough to arrive without planning a journey at all. The museum's sites all stand within a comfortable walk of one another, which is what makes the circuit work as one visit rather than several. Driving is actively discouraged by the museum, which advises leaving the car outside the centre and coming in by public transport or on foot; the nearest paid car park it names is below Čechův most on the nábřeží Edvarda Beneše embankment. The streets here are cobbled and often crowded. Allow more time than the map suggests between 11.00 and 15.00, when the surrounding lanes carry the same crowds as the museum.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

This is a burial ground before it is a sight, and the museum asks visitors to treat it as one. Appropriate clothing is expected and shoulders should be covered. Nothing may be taken from the ground. The stones are fragile, closely packed and unfenced along a narrow path, so keeping to the path is not a suggestion. Two practical rules catch people out. Luggage over 30 litres is not allowed anywhere on museum premises and there is no left luggage office, so a bag from a station has to be stored at a station. And every visitor passes through a security frame, with bags and personal items liable to be searched, which is the queue the museum's Priority Access membership exists to skip. Accessibility needs checking before travelling, because the museum's own pages disagree. The cemetery's page describes wheelchair access as partial, with entry from U Hřbitova Street; the museum's accessibility page states that the Old Jewish Cemetery is among the sites not yet accessible to visitors with limited mobility. Anyone who needs the accessible route should confirm it with the museum first rather than rely on either page. Guide and assistance dogs are welcome throughout on a valid ticket.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

Photography is allowed, within limits the museum states plainly: no flash, no additional lights and no tripod, and for personal use only. Anything beyond that, meaning detailed pictorial documentation of the cemetery or of any other part of the museum, needs prior agreement with the museum. In practice the no tripod rule matters more here than the no flash rule. The stones stand under mature trees in a plot enclosed by walls, so the light on the ground is dim and uneven even at midday, and a handheld camera is working harder than the bright exterior suggests. The compensation is that the subject does not move. Early morning in spring or late autumn, when the branches are bare and the sun is low, puts raking light across the carved surfaces and is the one condition that makes the reliefs and the animal emblems legible in a photograph. The path is narrow and one way in effect, so a photographer stopping for a composition is standing in someone's way; the quiet hours the museum recommends, before 11.00 or after 15.00, are the only ones where that is not a problem. Photographing at the tomb of Rabbi Loew, where visitors leave written requests, asks for particular restraint.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Where it is

Nearby

External links

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