Pinkas Synagogue

Pinkas Synagogue tickets and tours: which one to book

The Pinkas Synagogue is not sold on its own. It belongs to the Jewish Museum in Prague, and entry comes with the museum's circuit ticket, which also covers the Old Jewish Cemetery, the Maisel, Klausen and Spanish synagogues and the Ceremonial Hall. A separate ticket is needed for the Old-New Synagogue, which is still an active house of worship run by the Jewish community, and combined tickets including it are sold at the museum desks. Tickets are on sale at the museum's own ticket offices in Josefov and on its official website;

buying online in advance saves queueing in summer, but there are no timed slots, and the ticket is valid for one visit to each site on the day you choose. Guided walks through the Jewish Quarter are offered in many languages, both by the museum itself and by independent guides, and they are worth it if you want the history of the ghetto, its rabbis and its destruction explained as you go. Most guided walks do not include the entrance tickets, so check before you pay. Walking tours of the Old Town and evening ghost walks often pass along Siroka street, but they stop outside rather than enter. Audio guides can be hired at the museum, and the Pinkas Synagogue is usually the first building on the circuit, because the exit leads directly into the cemetery.

Visiting Pinkas Synagogue: what to see and how to behave

The building stands on Siroka street in Josefov, the former Jewish Town, with its floor below the level of the street, which is why the synagogue suffered so often from floods. It was completed in 1535 as a private synagogue for the Horowitz family, one of the leading Jewish families of Renaissance Prague, and it is the second oldest surviving synagogue in the city. Look up at the late Gothic net vault, whose ribs carry Renaissance ornament, and at the Renaissance portal. A vestibule, women's gallery and balcony were added in the early 17th century, and a wrought-iron grille from 1793 still surrounds the bimah. What brings visitors here, however, is the memorial.

In the years after the Second World War the interior walls were covered by hand with the names of about 77,300 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia murdered in the Holocaust, grouped by the town or village they came from, each name followed by the date of birth and the date of deportation or death. The communist authorities closed the synagogue in the late 1960s and the inscriptions were removed; they were painstakingly repainted in the 1990s. Reading a few columns from the place your own family or friends came from makes the scale of the loss very personal. Upstairs, a permanent exhibition shows drawings made by children in the Terezin ghetto during art classes held there in secret; most of the young artists did not survive. Speak quietly, keep phones silent and avoid photography of the walls if it is signposted as restricted.

Pinkas Synagogue: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

The synagogue follows the Jewish Museum's hours: open daily except Saturdays and Jewish holidays, with longer hours from spring to autumn and an earlier closing in winter; check the museum's site for the exact times and for holiday closures, which can fall on weekdays in September and October. Come at opening time or after 3 pm. From late morning to mid-afternoon, coach groups and city tours move through the narrow rooms, and the queue at the cemetery exit backs up into the synagogue.

Late afternoon in the low season is the quietest moment, when you can stand in front of the walls without being hurried. Allow 30 to 45 minutes for the Pinkas Synagogue and the children's drawings, then another 20 to 30 minutes for the Old Jewish Cemetery next door. The full Jewish Museum circuit needs about three hours. Combine it with the Old-New Synagogue, Old Town Square, about five minutes' walk away, and a walk along the Vltava embankment to the Rudolfinum.