“Encounters with Judaism” was the title of a lecture, which attracted a capacity audience to the Peace Embassy in Prague on April 27, 2026. The speaker was Ms. Sylvie Wittmannová, founder and honorary chairwoman of the Reform Jewish community Bejt Simcha in Prague.
In her presentation, Ms. Wittmannová, focused on several interesting facts from the history of Judaism. She mentioned, in particular, the role of women and the various views on their status within different branches of Judaism.
In the Bible, women such as Sarah, Rebecca, and others are prominent, but later when these texts were canonized it was the roles played by men which were emphasized.
Women hold an important position among the Hasidim; they serve as mothers, are the crown of the family, and are closer to God. God created man, and women give birth to men. There is no reason why a woman cannot be a rabbi, such as in the case of Regina Jonas, who was the first woman in Germany to be ordained as a rabbi in 1935.
During the Nazi era, she stood in for rabbis who had fled from several small communities. On November 4, 1942, all her property, including her books, was confiscated for the benefit of the Reich. The following day, she was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Terezín.
There she continued her rabbinical work; the well-known Viennese psychologist Viktor Frankl asked her to help boost the mental state of her fellow prisoners and improve living conditions in the ghetto and she actively participated in organizing cultural life in the camp. She spent two years in Terezín before being transported, along with most of the prisoners, to Auschwitz in mid-October 1944, where she was executed that same year.
Ms. Wittmannová also mentioned the differences between the Conservative,Liberal or Humanistic Judaism, and Reform Judaism (which is more in tune with the people of today).
In the second part of her presentation, Ms. Wittmannová spoke about the 16th century Rabbi Loew, an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. For most of his life, he served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia and wrote on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism. Rabbi Loew was opposed to students memorizing texts without understanding their content, commenting that it is better to be a good carpenter than to merely show off one’s intellect.
Loew is the subject of the legend about the creation of the Golem of Prague; a creature made from clay to defend the Jews of the Prague Ghetto from antisemitism attacks. He is said to have used mystical powers based on the esoteric knowledge of how God created Adam. The lecture ended with a few Jewish jokes, which lifted everyone’s spirits and highlighted the wisdom and way of thinking of the Jewish people, as well as their sense of humor.
Then followed a lively discussion among the audience who had listened intently for nearly three hours.