Historica Olomucensia

Life Outside a Ghetto: The Birth of the Jewish Religious Community in the Region of Frýdek and Místek

Recent research on the life of the Jews in Moravia and Silesia who lived before 1848 outside the Jewish communities is focused primarily on answering the question what the consequences of tightening and lightening of the restrictions against the Jews were as for the multitude, territorial enlargement and form of the legal status of the Jewish population. However, this article pays attention also to other aspects of life of the Jews who were living outside the ghetto, especially to the communal religious life of the Jews in the Frýdek and Místek region. In realization of the communal religious life the desire of religious people to share their faith interfered with their effort to earn a living outside a ghetto. This article deals also with the territorial specifics of the Jewish life in this area, particularly with the importance of the Jewish restaurants - built for Jewish merchants from Galicia - for the religious life and the livelihood of the local Jews.