MOST

MOST (Ger. Bruex), city in N.W. Bohemia, Czechoslovakia (town no longer exists). A Jewish moneylender is recorded in Most in 1393; there was a Jewish street situated near the monastery in the 14th century. When the Jews were expelled in 1453 most of them settled in litomerice . One Jew was allowed to settle in Most in 1839, and after 1848 some Jews from the surrounding villages moved to the city. There were 15 Jews in 1861, when a congregation was established; the synagogue was dedicated in 1872. Some of the rabbis of Most later became eminent: alexander kisch (1874–77), joseph samuel bloch (1877–79), and gotthard deutsch (1884–91). In 1930 there were 662 Jews in Most (2.4% of the total population). The community owed its importance and affluence to the development of lignite mining by the petschek and Weimann firms. During the Sudeten crisis the community dispersed, and the synagogue was destroyed on Nov. 10, 1938. The congregation was reestablished in 1945, mainly by Jews from subcarpathian ruthenia , under the administration of the usti nad labem community. In 1975 Most was evacuated to make way for open-cut mining and ceased to exist. The German-Jewish poet Yermiyahu Oskar Neumann (1894–1981), subsequently of Be'er Toviyyah, Israel, was born in Most. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Halberstam, in: H. Gold (ed.), Die Juden und Judengemeinden Boehmens (1934), 70–77; J.C. Pick, in: Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), 374–5; R. Iltis (ed.), Die aussaeen unter Traenen… (1959), 25; G. Deutsch, Scrolls, 2 (1917), 321–40; Bondy-Dworský nos. 180–1, 191, 194–5, 198, 200, 202–8, 214, 216–7, 229, 234, 236–8, 240, 246–7, 254, 266, 271, 277. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991), 194. (Jan Herman)