Old New Synagogue

What it is

The Old-New Synagogue stands on Červená street in Josefov, the former Jewish Town of Prague, and it is the oldest surviving synagogue in Europe as well as the oldest site in the quarter. It is not a museum piece that happens to be old: the Prague Jewish Community, which administers the building, describes it as the community's main synagogue for more than seven hundred years, and it still holds services. Stone-masons from the royal workshop then at work on the nearby Convent of St Agnes built it in the last third of the thirteenth century, which is itself the point the operator draws from it — a small, recently arrived community could commission the crown's own masons. The name is a later accident. It opened as the New or Great Shul, and only after further synagogues went up in the late sixteenth century did it become the Old-New, the Altneuschul. A second reading takes the name from the Hebrew al-tenai, on condition, and attaches it to the legend that angels carried the foundation stones here from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem on condition that they be given back when the Temple is rebuilt. Since 1 January 2024 the building is entered on the Jewish Town circuit ticket rather than on one of its own.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

Nine steps drop from the street into a vestibule, and a door from there opens into the hall itself — a double nave of six vaulted bays, a plan the Christian architects appear to have borrowed from monastery and chapel work of the period. The moulding on the tympanum above the entry carries twelve vines and twelve bunches of grapes, read as the twelve tribes of Israel, and the same motif returns on the base of the bimah. Two heavy pillars run east to west down the middle of the room, each carrying the inner corner of four bays. Every bay has two narrow Gothic windows, twelve in all, and their narrowness is why older accounts call the building dark; electric chandeliers light it now. The vaults are ribbed five times rather than the usual four or six, which has been argued as an avoidance of the cross and is disputed. The Aron Kodesh sits in the middle of the east wall, five steps up, with a round stained-glass window on either side above it. Orthodox custom applies: women sit in an outer room and follow the service through small windows. A large red banner hangs near the west pillar, its Star of David and Jewish hat stitched in gold; Ferdinand III granted the community the banner, and the one on display is a modern copy.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

Allow thirty minutes. Neither the Prague Jewish Community nor the Jewish Museum in Prague publishes a suggested length for this building, so thirty minutes is this guide's judgement rather than a figure read off an operator page. It is built on what the room actually is: one hall of six bays with a vestibule, no gallery route, no exhibition circuit and nothing to queue for once inside. Twenty minutes covers the tympanum, the vaulting, the banner and the ark at a pace that lets a visitor read them; thirty leaves room for the security check at the door and for the hall being full when they arrive. An hour would be spent standing still. The figure to plan the day around is a different one. The ticket covers five synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery, all within a few minutes' walk of each other, and the museum's own audio tour of that circuit runs about two hours across eighty stops. An individual or family ticket is valid for three opening days, so the circuit does not have to be walked in one go — a point worth using rather than rushing six sites into an afternoon.

Checked 2026-08-26

Season and crowds

The synagogue is open every day except Saturdays and Jewish holidays, and the hours move with the season. The Jewish Museum in Prague publishes, for 2026: 9.00 to 17.00 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 17.00 from 18 October to 31 December. Two single days sit outside that table — 1 January opens late at 11.00 and closes at 17.00, and 24 December closes at 14.00. The 2026 holiday closures are 2, 3, 8 and 9 April for Pesach, 22 May for Shavuot, 13 September for Rosh Hashanah, 21 September for Yom Kippur, 27 September for Sukkot and 4 October for Simchat Torah. Friday is the day to watch. The operator states only that the synagogue usually closes an hour before Shabbat begins, and publishes no fixed Friday time, so a winter Friday can end in the early afternoon: go in the morning. Ticket sales stop thirty minutes before closing. For crowds, the museum names 11.00 to 15.00 as its busiest window and points visitors at the first hour after opening or the late afternoon instead.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

There is no ticket to the Old-New Synagogue alone. Since 1 January 2024 the building is entered on the Jewish Town circuit ticket, which also covers the Maisel, Pinkas, Klausen and Spanish Synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery. The Jewish Museum in Prague prices that ticket at CZK 600 for adults, CZK 400 for students under 26, CZK 200 for children aged 7 to 15, free for children up to 6 and CZK 100 for disability card holders, with a free assistant's ticket issued at the Visitor Centre at Maiselova 15. The two operator sites do not agree on the middle categories: synagogue.cz, run by the Prague Jewish Community, lists CZK 400 for children aged 6 to 15 and students together, where the museum separates them. Both were read on 26 August 2026; the museum's page is the one that sells the ticket. An individual or family ticket is valid for three opening days and admits the holder once to each site; for groups of six or more it is valid on the day of issue only. Buy online or at the ticket offices in the Spanish, Klausen, Pinkas and Maisel Synagogues and at the Visitor Centre. Prague Visitor Pass and CoolPass holders enter free once per site; an annual Lítačka coupon takes 30 per cent off. Audio guides cost CZK 250, or CZK 200 for children under 15 and students under 26.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The address is Červená street, Josefov, Prague 1, inside the old Jewish Town and a few minutes on foot from everything else the ticket covers. The nearest public transport is Staroměstská — metro line A, trams 17 and 18, buses 194 and 207 — which the museum puts at a three-minute walk. Old Town Square is five minutes away and Charles Bridge about ten, so for most visitors the synagogue is reached on foot from wherever the day already is, rather than travelled to. No car is needed, and the operator says so plainly: parking in the historic centre is difficult and it recommends leaving the car outside the centre and arriving by public transport or on foot. The nearest paid car park it names is under Čechův most, on nábřeží Edvarda Beneše. Two practical notes on the approach. Tickets for the whole circuit are sold at the Visitor Centre at Maiselova 15, a short walk away, which is also where audio guides and the discounted and free bonus tickets are issued — worth building into the route if any of those apply. And the sites sit close enough together that the walking order matters more than the transport: the circuit is designed to be done as one loop through the quarter.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

Saturday is the trap. The synagogue is shut every Saturday and on Jewish holidays, and a Prague itinerary built around a weekend can miss the whole quarter without noticing. The second trap is the thirty-minute cut-off on ticket sales before closing, which on a winter Friday — when the synagogue closes an hour before Shabbat and no fixed time is published — can fall much earlier than a visitor expects. Dress for the building. The museum asks visitors to wear appropriate clothes with shoulders covered, and offers kippot to men at the sites. Security is real rather than nominal: everyone passes through screening frames, bags and personal items may be searched, and luggage or backpacks over 30 litres are refused. There is no left-luggage office anywhere on the premises, and the museum points visitors at the lockers in the main rail and bus stations instead. Weapons, sharp objects and flammable materials are prohibited, and animals other than guide dogs are not admitted; assistance dogs are welcome with a valid ticket. On access, the museum is explicit that the Old-New Synagogue is not yet accessible to visitors with limited mobility — nine steps lead down from the street into the vestibule. Finally, this is a working synagogue, not only a monument.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

The Jewish Museum in Prague allows photography at its sites for personal, non-commercial use by ticket holders, without a tripod, additional lighting or flash. Anything beyond that — professional or commercial photography, or filming in the exhibitions and the Old Jewish Cemetery — needs prior arrangement, a purpose agreed in advance and a fee from the service price list, and filming applications must be submitted at least a week ahead through [email protected]. One caveat belongs here rather than in a footnote. The Old-New Synagogue is administered by the Prague Jewish Community, not by the museum, and neither operator publishes a photography rule specific to this building. The museum-wide rule is the nearest published guidance, not a stated permission for this hall; ask at the door and treat a refusal as final. Assume, in any case, that a service in progress ends the question. On the light itself, a practical note carrying no source: the twelve lancet windows are narrow, which is why older accounts of the building call it dark, and the room is now lit by electric chandeliers. Without flash or a tripod that means slow hand-held work in mixed light, and the vaulting and the tympanum photograph better than the ark, which sits against the brightest wall.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Where it is

Nearby

External links

• View on Wikidata