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.

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; nephew of Hugo Bergmann
 * Berthold Bretholz, Moravian historian
 * Vilém Flusser (1920–1991), self-taught philosopher
 * Ernest Gellner (1925–1995), philosopher and social anthropologist
 * Stephan Korner, philosopher
 * 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

Arts/entertainment

 * Bedřich Feuerstein (1892–1936), architect, painter and essayist
 * Miloš Forman (1932–2018), film director, actor and script writer
 * Juraj Herz (born 1934), film director, actor, and scenic designer (born in Slovakia)
 * Arnošt Goldflam (born 1946), playwright, writer, director, screenwriter and actor
 * Hugo Haas (1901–1968), actor and film director
 * Miloš Kopecký (1922–1996), actor
 * Hugo Lederer (1871–1940), sculptor
 * Francis Lederer (1899–2000), actor
 * Herbert Lom (1917–2012), 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 (born 1946), 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 (born 1937), 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
Salomon Weisz, Cantor & Bar Mitzvah teacher in Znojmo and Trebic, Cantor of Moravia & Bar Mitzvah teacher in Prague from 1946 to 1968.
 * 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

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 (born 1931), 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

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
 * Tomáš Galásek, football player
 * Petr Ginz (1928–1944), boy deported to the Terezín concentration camp during the Holocaust
 * Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal (1759–1849), merchant
 * 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