History of the Jews in Bratislava

The first record of the Jewish community in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, dates from 1251.^[1] Until the end of World War I, Bratislava (known as Pressburg or Pozsony through much of its history) was a multicultural city with a Hungarian and German majority and a Slovak and Jewish minority. In 1806 when the city was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, Rabbi Moses Sofer established the Pressburg Yeshiva and the city emerged as the center of Central European Jewry and a leading power in the opposition to the Reform movement in Judaism in Europe. Pressburg Yeshiva produced hundreds of future leaders of Austro-Hungarian Jewry who made major influence on the general traditional orthodox and future Charedi Judaism.^[2]

The Bratislava Jewish Community was the largest and most influential in Slovakia. In 1930, approximately 15,000 Jews lived in the city (total population was 120,000). Part of the community emigrated during the late 1930s and after the Second World War but despite organized efforts such as the Bratislava Working Group, the majority of Bratislava Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

Today, Bratislava features the Heydukova Street Synagogue, Museum of Jewish Culture, Bratislava Jewish Community Museum, the Chatam Sofer Memorial, the Neolog cemetery and the Orthodox cemetery and many other Jewish landmarks and monuments. Bratislava Jewish Community comprises approximately 500 people^[3] and since 1993, the Chief Rabbi of Slovakia and Rabbi of Bratislava is Baruch Myers.^[4]