TORAH SHIELD THAT WAS TO HAVE BEEN SOLD AT SOTHEBY´S IS RETURNED TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM IN PRAGUE
8. 7. 2024 Overview news
The shield was made as part of a pair of very similar items commissioned by Leopold and Rosalie Schmolka in 1886. It was
donated to the synagogue in the small town of Dolní Kralovice in Central Bohemia, which was probably built on the site of
an earlier building dating from 1717.
The donors of the shield came from the nearby village of Zahrádka, where a Jewish settlement was established in the 17th
century. Zahrádka had fewer than a thousand inhabitants, but had an interesting history. The parish priest Josef Toufar was
active there in the 1940s. The local Jewish inhabitants were members of the Jewish religious community of Dolní Kralovice.
More about torah shield at our press release.