Old Jewish Cemetery

The Old Jewish Cemetery lies behind a wall in Josefov, the former Jewish Town of Prague, and is one of the oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds in Europe. The Jewish Museum in Prague, which administers it, gives its years of use as 1439 to 1787 and counts more than 12,000 tombstones standing on the ground today. That number understates the burials. The museum notes that in Hebrew a cemetery is often called beit chayim, house of life. Wheelchair access is partial.

The path through the cemetery is fixed and narrow, and what a visitor reads from it is the stones themselves. The museum sets out two broad periods. Fifteenth and sixteenth century markers are dark sandstone slabs with deeply cut Hebrew inscriptions; from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries come white and reddish brown marble, lettering in relief, ornate carving, and after 1600 the monumental tomb chambers known as ohels, carrying long epitaphs on the wisdom, charity and public service of the person beneath.

The museum answers this itself: the visit usually takes thirty minutes. That is honest for the cemetery alone, because the route is a single fixed path with no rooms to enter and no detours, and thirty minutes is enough to walk it slowly and stop at the tomb of Rabbi Loew. Thirty minutes is not enough for the day the ticket actually buys. Two constraints shape the timing. Wheelchair access is partial. The step-free route uses the visitor exit between the Klausen Synagogue and the Ceremonial Hall on U Starého hřbitova Street; the regular visitor entrance is at Široká 3.

The cemetery keeps the hours of the museum's own sites, and they move with the season. On 24 December it closes at 14.00, and on 1 January it opens late, 11.00 to 16.30. There is no midday break. 2026: 1 January 11:00–16:30; 2 January–31 March 09:00–16:30; 1–30 April 09:00–18:00; 1 May–31 August 09:00–19:00; 1 September–17 October 09:00–18:00; 18 October–31 December 09:00–16:30, except 24 December 09:00–14:00. Closed every Saturday and on Jewish holidays: 2–3 and 8–9 April, 22–23 May, 12–13 and 21 and 26–27 September, and 3–4 October 2026.

One ticket covers the whole circuit, and there is no cemetery only ticket. Holders of the annual Lítačka coupon pay 420 CZK, or 280 CZK at the discounted rate. Tickets are sold online and at the ticket offices in the Spanish, Klausen, Pinkas and Maisel Synagogues and at the Visitor Centre. Ticket sales end 30 minutes before closing. The standard adult Prague Jewish Town ticket costs CZK 600 and includes the Old Jewish Cemetery and all currently open sites covered by the Jewish Museum ticket. Individual and family tickets are valid for three opening days, with each site admitting the ticket holder once. Ticket sales end 30 minutes before closing.

The entrance is at Široká 3 in Prague 1, in the old Jewish Town between Old Town Square and the river, and no car is needed to reach it. The streets here are cobbled and often crowded. The regular visitor entrance is Široká 3, Prague 1. The regular visitor entrance is Široká 3, Prague 1. Staroměstská station, served by Metro A, trams 17 and 18, and buses 194 and 207, is about a three-minute walk from the museum sites. Old Town Square is about five minutes away on foot and Charles Bridge about ten minutes. The museum recommends public transport or walking; the nearest named paid parking area is beneath Čechův most on nábřeží Edvarda Beneše.

This is a burial ground before it is a sight, and the museum asks visitors to treat it as one. Appropriate clothing is expected and shoulders should be covered. Nothing may be taken from the ground. The stones are fragile, closely packed and unfenced along a narrow path, so keeping to the path is not a suggestion. Wheelchair access is partial. Clearly identified guide and assistance dogs accompanying visitors with valid tickets are permitted in exhibition areas. The Jewish Museum recommends allowing about 30 minutes for the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Photography is allowed, within limits the museum states plainly: no flash, no additional lights and no tripod, and for personal use only. Anything beyond that, meaning detailed pictorial documentation of the cemetery or of any other part of the museum, needs prior agreement with the museum. In practice the no tripod rule matters more here than the no flash rule. The compensation is that the subject does not move. The Jewish Museum recommends allowing about 30 minutes for the Old Jewish Cemetery. The regular entrance is at Široká 3, 110 00 Prague 1.