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

Engineering

Itzhak Bentov, inventor
Daniel Mandl (1891–1944), civil engineer, inventor, victim of the Holocaust

Social science

Guido Adler (1855–1941), musicologist, composer, writer, born in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia
Yehuda Bauer, Czech-born Israeli historian of the Holocaust
Samuel Bergman, philosopher
Pavel Bergmann, historian, philosopher and political activist; signatory of charter 77;
Berthold Bretholz, Moravian historian
Vilém Flusser (1920–1991), self-taught philosopher
Ernest Gellner (1925–1995), philosopher and social anthropologist
Joseph Goldberger, discovered cure for pellagra
Anna Hájková, (1978-) Holocaust historian and Theresienstadt expert
Stephan Korner, philosopher
Julie Moschelesová (1892–1956) A pioneering geographer in Czechoslovakia who emigrated to Australia
Ernest Nagel, philosopher
Samuel Steinherz (1857–1942), Czechoslovak mediaevalist

Mathematics

Nikolai Brashman (1796–1866), mathematician
David Gans (1541–1613), mathematician
Joseph Kohn (1932–2023), mathematician
Ernst Kolman (1892–1972), philosopher of mathematics
Charles Loewner (1893–1968), mathematician
Assaf Naor (born 1975), mathematician
Alfred Tauber (1866–1942), mathematician
Olga Taussky-Todd (1906–1995), mathematician

Medicine

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis; born in Příbor (Freiberg), Moravia
Carl Koller (1857–1944), ophthalmologist
Pavol Steiner (1908–1969), Olympic water polo player, swimmer, and cardiac surgeon
Rudolf Vrba (1924–2006), pharmacologist (born in Slovakia)

Natural science

Gerty Cori (1896–1957), biochemist
Martin Fleischmann, chemist
Eva Smolková‑Keulemansová, (1927-2024) professor of analytical science at Charles University.
Rudolf Vrba, coauthor of the Vrba–Wetzler report, chemist

Arts/entertainment

Bedřich Feuerstein (1892–1936), architect, painter and essayist
Miloš Forman (1932–2018), film director, actor and script writer
Arnošt Goldflam (born 1946), playwright, writer, director, screenwriter and actor
Hugo Haas (1901–1968), actor and film director
Juraj Herz (born 1934), film director, actor, and scenic designer (born in Slovakia)
Miloš Kopecký (1922–1996), actor
Hugo Lederer (1871–1940), sculptor
Francis Lederer (1899–2000), actor
Herbert Lom (1917–2012), actor
Peter Lorre, actor
Robert Maxwell (1923–1991), media mogul
Emil Orlik (1870–1932), painter
Alfréd Radok (1917–1976), writer and director in theater and film
Karel Reisz (1926–2002), film director
Ivan Reitman (1946-2022), film director (born in Slovakia)
Emery Roth (1871–1948), architect (born in Sečovce at the present-day territory of Slovakia)
Jan Saudek (born 1935), art photographer
Anna Ticho (1894–1980), artist
Jiří Weiss (1913–2004), film director and screenwriter
Adrianna Demiany (née Roskovanyi) (born 1942), Slovak-Hungarian-Canadian Journalist (Born in Košice at the present-day territory of Slovakia)

Athletes

Kurt Epstein (1904–1975), Czechoslovak national water polo team, Olympic competitor, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
Arie Gill-Glick (1930–2016), Israeli Olympic runner
Ladislav Hecht (1909–2004), Czechoslovak-American tennis player, world #6
Gertrude "Traute" Kleinová (1918–1976), table tennis, three-time world champion, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
Pavol Steiner (1908–1969), Olympic water polo player, swimmer, and cardiac surgeon
Olga Winterberg (1922–2010), Israeli Olympian in the discus throw

Music

Karel Ančerl (1908–1973), conductor, respected for his performances of contemporary music and particularly cherished for his interpretations of music by Czech composers
Karel Berman (1919–1995), opera singer and composer
Ignaz Brüll, composer and pianist
Arthur Chitz (1882–1944) musicologist, composer, pianist, and conductor
Alexander Goldscheider (born 1950), composer and producer
Alfred Grünfeld (1852–1924), pianist and composer
Pavel Haas (1899–1944), composer
Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904), music critic
Gideon Klein (1919–1945), composer of classical music
Eliška Kleinová (1912–1999), pianist, music educator; sister of Gideon Klein
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), composer
Hans Krása (1899–1944), composer
Egon Ledeč (1889–1944), music composer
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), music composer and conductor, Czech-born
Herbert Thomas Mandl (1926–2007), 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 (Terezín) ghetto
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870), composer and piano virtuoso
Zuzana Růžičková (1927–2017), contemporary harpsichordist, interpreter of classical and baroque music
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942), composer and pianist
Julius Schulhoff (1825–1898), pianist and composer
Walter Susskind (1913–1980), conductor
Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944), composer, conductor and pianist
Jaromír Weinberger (1896–1967), composer

Politicians

Victor Adler (1852–1918), socialist politician, born in Prague
Madeleine Albright (1937–2022), served as the 64th United States Secretary of State
Ludwig Czech (1870–1942), leader and several times minister for the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic
Jan Fischer (born 1951), prime minister of the Czech Republic (2009)
Bruno Kafka (1881–1931), 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 (1915–1986), communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský trial; born in Ostrava, Silesia, Austria-Hungary
Rudolf Margolius (1913–1952), Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade (1949–1952), a victim of the Slánský trial
Rudolf Slánský (1901–1952); 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 (born 1945), 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 (born Rousínov, Moravia)
Israel Bruna, rabbi (born Brno)
Aaron Chorin, rabbi (born Moravia)
Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946), Chief Rabbi of the British Empire
Isaac ben Jacob ha-Lavan, Bohemian tosafist
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525?–1609), rabbi
Mordecai Meisel, philanthropist and communal leader at Prague
Karol Sidon, playwright, chief rabbi of Prague, and Convert to Judaism
Salomon Weisz, cantor & Bar Mitzvah teacher in Znojmo and Trebic, cantor of Moravia and Bar Mitzvah teacher in Prague from 1946 to 1968.

Writers

Henri Blowitz, journalist
Max Brod (1884–1968), author, composer, and journalist
Petr Brod (b. 1951), journalist
Avigdor Dagan (1912–2006), writer
Egon Hostovsky (1908–1973), writer
Franz Kafka (1883–1924), novelist
Siegfried Kapper (1821–1879), writer
Ivan Klíma (1931–2025), novelist, playwright
Leopold Kompert (1822–1886), author
Heda Margolius Kovály, author and translator
František R. Kraus (1903–1967), writer, journalist and reporter; wrote one of the first books ever about his experience in Auschwitz, published in 1945
Jiří Langer (1894-1943), poet, scholar and essayist, journalist and teacher
Arnošt Lustig (1926–2011), author of novels, short stories, plays and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust
Jiří Orten (1919–1941), poet
Ota Pavel (1930–1973), writer, journalist and sport reporter
Leopold Perutz (1882–1957), German language novelist and mathematician
Karel Poláček (1892–1945), writer and journalist
Tom Stoppard (born 1937), playwright, known for plays such as The Real Thing and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and for the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love
Hermann Ungar (1893–1929), writer of German language and an officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia
Jiří Weil (1900–1959), writer, novels Life with a Star (Život s hvězdou) and Mendelssohn is on the Roof
Franz Werfel (1890–1945), Czech-born writer; married Mahler's widow
Alfred Wetzler, writer

Other

Jacob Bassevi (1580–1634), Bohemian Court Jew and financier
George Brady (1928–2019), brother of Hana Brady
Hana Brady (1931–1944), Holocaust victim
Izrael Zachariah Deutsch, deaf memoirist
Salo Flohr (1908–1983), leading chess master of the early 20th century
Petr Ginz (1928–1944), boy deported to the Terezín concentration camp during the Holocaust
Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal (1759–1849), merchant
Ignác Kolisch, chess player
Frank Lowy (born 1930), businessman
Richard Réti (1889–1929), chess grandmaster
Yoshua Samuel Rusnak (also "Yehoshua Sh'mu'el Rusnak"; died 1915), diasporan Jew and Zionist based in Kosice, Slovakia; many of his family members were murdered in the Holocaust at Auschwitz
Wilhelm Steinitz (1836–1900), first World Chess Champion
Irene Capek (1925–2006), Jewish holocaust survivor, humanitarian and local Australian politician