Old Jewish Cemetery | Prague

This guide to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague explains why the ground beneath it rises like a small hill: for over three centuries, Prague's Jewish community was confined to this one walled plot and forbidden from burying their dead elsewhere, so graves were layered again and again atop the old. It traces that history through the crowded stones above and singles out the tomb of Rabbi Judah Loew, who died in 1609 and is tied to a legend of a clay giant. Look for the folded paper wishes still tucked into the cracks of his gravestone.