The Society of Jewish Culture, founded here Tuesday, will serve the needs of non-observant Jews but may also help revive Jewish religious communities in Czechoslovakia, says its newly elected president, Bedrich Nosek.
The society was officially inaugurated at ceremonies in the ancient Jewish Town Hall on Tuesday. The packed hall was addresed by Zevulun Hammer, Israel’s minister for religious affairs, who is on an official visit to Czechoslovakia.
Nosek, who is of mixed ancestry, holds a Ph.D. in Judaism and Hebrew. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the idea for the society arose from the need to give people who do not attend synagogue services an opportunity to participate in Jewish cultural and social life and learning traditions.
He noted that during the more than 40 years of Communist rule, which formally ended in January, any specifically Jewish activity except religious services was forbidden.
Now the time is ripe for change, Nosek said. He stressed, however, that the society is not competing with religious institutions.
On the contrary, studying Jewish culture, dealing with Jewish traditions and reading Jewish literature may help some people find their way back to religion, he said.
He said the society was considering opening a book shop and possibly even a printing press. He also said non-Jewish participation in its activities was welcome.
There is an active interest in Judaism and in the common Czechoslovak-Jewish cultural heritage in intellectual and academic circles in Prague, Nosek said.
Describing his own background, he explained he was raised in a gentile family but knew that some of his ancestors were Jewish.
His grandmother, a half-Jew, was forced to wear the yellow Star of David during the Nazi occupation. His father, his only relative with four Jewish grandparents, was persecuted.
He said his interest in the fate of the Jews and their traditions was first stimulated when his parents took him to the former Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Nosek, who earned his doctorate at Charles University, in Prague, is employed by the Jewish Museum in Prague. He is fluent in Hebrew and has many academic contacts in Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
