List of Czech and Slovak Jews
There was a large and thriving community of Jews, both religious and secular, in Czechoslovakia before World War II. Many perished during the Holocaust. Today, nearly all of the survivors have inter-married and assimilated into Czech and Slovak society.
Academics and scientists
- Guido Adler, musicologist, composer, writer, born in Ivančice, Moravia
- Yehuda Bauer, Czech-born Israeli historian of the Holocaust
- Itzhak Bentov, inventor
- Samuel Bergman, philosopher
- Pavel Bergmann, historian, philosopher and political activist; signatory of charter 77; nephew of Hugo Bergmann
- Berthold Bretholz, Moravian historian
- Gerty Cori, biochemist
- Martin Fleischmann, chemist
- Vilém Flusser, self-taught philosopher
- Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis; born in Příbor, Moravia
- Ernest Gellner, philosopher and social anthropologist
- Carl Koller, ophthalmologist
- Stephan Korner, philosopher
- Daniel Mandl, civil engineer, inventor, victim of the Holocaust
- Ernest Nagel, philosopher
- Samuel Steinherz, Czechoslovak mediaevalist
- Rudolf Vrba, pharmacologist
Mathematicians
- Nikolai Brashman, mathematician
- David Gans, mathematician
- Joseph Kohn, mathematician
- Ernst Kolman, philosopher of mathematics
- Charles Loewner, mathematician
- Assaf Naor, mathematician
- Alfred Tauber, mathematician
- Olga Taussky-Todd, mathematician
Arts/entertainment
- Bedřich Feuerstein, architect, painter and essayist
- Miloš Forman, film director, actor and script writer
- Juraj Herz, film director, actor, and scenic designer
- Arnošt Goldflam, playwright, writer, director, screenwriter and actor
- Hugo Haas, actor and film director
- Miloš Kopecký, actor
- Hugo Lederer, sculptor
- Francis Lederer, actor
- Herbert Lom, actor
- Robert Maxwell, media mogul
- Emil Orlik, painter
- Alfréd Radok, writer and director in theater and film
- Karel Reisz, director, became one of the most important film-makers in post war Britain
- Ivan Reitman, film director
- Emery Roth, architect
- Jan Saudek, art photographer
- Anna Ticho, artist
- Jiří Weiss, film director and screenwriter
- Adrianna Demiany , Slovak-Hungarian-Canadian Journalist
Athletes
- Kurt Epstein, Czechoslovak national water polo team, Olympic competitor, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
- Arie Gill-Glick, Israeli Olympic runner
- Gertrude "Traute" Kleinová, table tennis, three-time world champion, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
- Olga Winterberg, Israeli Olympian in the discus throw
Music
- Karel Ančerl, conductor, respected for his performances of contemporary music and particularly cherished for his interpretations of music by Czech composers
- Karel Berman, opera singer and composer
- Ignaz Brüll, composer and pianist
- :de:Arthur_Chitz|Arthur Chitz musicologist, composer, pianist, and conductor
- Alexander Goldscheider, composer and producer
- Alfred Grünfeld, pianist and composer
- Pavel Haas, composer
- Eduard Hanslick, music critic
- Gideon Klein, composer of classical music
- Eliška Kleinová, pianist, music educator; sister of Gideon Klein
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold, composer
- Hans Krása, composer
- Egon Ledeč, music composer
- Gustav Mahler, music composer and conductor, Czech-born
- Herbert Thomas Mandl, concert violinist, professor at the Janáček Academy of Music in Ostrava, Holocaust survivor who was a contemporary witness to the rich cultural life in the Theresienstadt ghetto
- Ignaz Moscheles, composer and piano virtuoso
- Zuzana Růžičková, contemporary harpsichordist, interpreter of classical and baroque music
- Erwin Schulhoff, composer and pianist
- Julius Schulhoff, pianist and composer
- Walter Susskind, conductor
- Viktor Ullmann, composer, conductor and pianist
- Jaromír Weinberger, composer
Politicians
- Victor Adler, socialist politician, born in Prague
- Madeleine Albright, served as the 64th United States Secretary of State
- Ludwig Czech, leader and several times minister for the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic
- Jan Fischer, prime minister of the Czech Republic
- Bruno Kafka, German-speaking Jewish Czech politician, leader from 1918 to his death of the Czechoslovak German Democratic Liberal Party, member of the National Assembly
- Ignaz Kuranda, politician
- Artur London, communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský trial; born in Ostrava, Silesia, Austria-Hungary
- Rudolf Margolius, Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, a victim of the Slánský trial
- Rudolf Slánský ; Communist politician and the party's General Secretary after World War II; fell into disfavour with the regime and was executed after a show trial
- Michael Žantovský, politician and author; appointed to serve as the Ambassador to Israel in July 2003
- Vladimír Železný, media businessman and politician, member of the European Parliament, founder of TV NOVA
Religious leaders
- Samuel Abramson, rabbi of Carlsbad
- Tzvi Ashkenazi, better known as Haham Zevi, chief rabbi of Amsterdam, prominent opponent of the Sabbateans
- Nehemiah Brüll, rabbi
- Israel Bruna, rabbi
- Aaron Chorin, rabbi
- Joseph H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire
- Isaac ben Jacob ha-Lavan, Bohemian tosafist
- Judah Loew ben Bezalel, rabbi
- Mordecai Meisel, Philanthropist and communal leader at Prague
- Karol Sidon, playwright, chief rabbi of Prague, and Convert to Judaism
Writers
- Henri Blowitz, journalist
- Max Brod, author, composer, and journalist
- Avigdor Dagan, writer
- Egon Hostovsky, writer
- Franz Kafka, novelist
- Siegfried Kapper, writer
- Ivan Klíma, novelist, playwright
- Leopold Kompert, author
- Heda Margolius Kovály, author and translator
- František R. Kraus, writer, journalist and reporter; wrote one of the first books ever about his experience in Auschwitz, published in 1945
- Arnošt Lustig, author of novels, short stories, plays and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust
- Jiří Orten, poet
- Ota Pavel, writer, journalist and sport reporter
- Leopold Perutz, German language novelist and mathematician
- Karel Poláček, writer and journalist
- Tom Stoppard, playwright, known for plays such as The Real Thing and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and for the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love
- Hermann Ungar, writer of German language and an officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia
- Jiří Weil, writer, novels Life with a Star and Mendelssohn is on the Roof
- Franz Werfel, Czech-born writer; married Mahler's widow
Other
- Jacob Bassevi, Bohemian Court Jew and financier
- George Brady, brother of Hana Brady
- Hana Brady, Holocaust victim
- Izrael Zachariah Deutsch, deaf memoirist
- Salo Flohr, leading chess master of the early 20th century
- Tomáš Galásek, football player
- Petr Ginz, boy deported to the Terezín concentration camp during the Holocaust
- Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal, merchant
- Frank Lowy, businessman
- Richard Réti, chess grandmaster
- Yoshua Samuel Rusnak, diasporan Jew and Zionist based in Kosice, Slovakia; many of his family members were murdered in the Holocaust at Auschwitz
- Wilhelm Steinitz, first World Chess Champion
- Irene Capek, Jewish holocaust survivor, humanitarian and local Australian politician
Footnotes