UHERSKE HRADISTE

UHERSKE HRADISTE (Czech Uherské Hradiště; Ger. Ungarisch-Hradisch), town in S.E. Moravia, Czech Republic; in the Middle Ages one of the six royal cities in Moravia. The first documentary evidence about Jews residing in the town dates from 1342. In 1453, when Jews were expelled from all the other Moravian royal cities, Uherske Hradiste refused to follow suit; but in 1514, under King Ladislaus II, they were expelled from there too. They settled in small rural communities and smaller towns and were not permitted to return to Uherske Hradiste until 1848. In 1857 there were 67 Jews in the town, rising to 342 in 1869 and 488 in 1880. A new synagogue was constructed in 1875; it was redesigned in the Art Noveau style in 1904. In the early 21st century it was used as the municipal library. A prosperous community developed, the majority of Jews joining Zionist organizations. By 1930 the number of Jews had fallen to 353. The few who returned after World War II were incorporated into the community of uhersky brod and later into that of brno . On the site of the former cemetery, devastated by the Nazis, a memorial to the Holocaust victims was erected. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Gold (ed.), Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens (1929), 561–2. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia, (1991). (Chaim Yahil / Yeshayahu Jelinek (2nd ed.)