# 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; 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 (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 (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