GemeindeView:  Kasejovice

CURRENT CZECH NAME:  Kasejovice

OTHER NAMES/SPELLINGS:  Kassejowitz, Kasejowitz, Kasseyowitz

LOCATION: Kasejovice is a small town in SW Bohemia, district Plzen-South, 53.7 miles SW of Prague.  Became a small town in the 14th century, a  town in 1878.

Mapquest map

Sketch map of the former ghetto of Kasejovice showing synagogue and cottages.  The ghetto was built in 1727.  The original ground plan is mostly preserved.

HISTORY:  There was a Jewish family in Kasejovice in 1570, 4 families and a prayer room in 1618.  24 Jewish families are recorded in the mid-18th century, and 25 families in the mid-19th century.   By 1930, there were only 28 persons of the Jewish faith. 

GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES: For more details, including family names, see The Jews of Kasejovice.

NOTABLE RESIDENTS AND DESCENDANTS: Filip Bondy, rabbi, mid 19th century, first rabbi in Bohemia to preach in Czech

SYNAGOGUES: The synagogue was built in 1762 in the Rococo style, rebuilt in 1832.  Services were held until the 1920s, when the few remaining Jews merged into the Horazdovice congregation. The synagogue has been renovated and is now a museum of Jewish religious objects (which Kasejovice residents claim were returned from Horazdovice) and local pottery and handicrafts.

CEMETERY: The cemetery was founded most probably in 1704 and is considered quite notable for its Baroque and Classicist tombstones from 1710.  See description from IAJGS Cemetery Project

Cemetery Picture from Old Bohemian and Moravian Jewish Cemeteries 

SOURCES: 

The Jews of Kasejovice, Translated by Ernest Stein, Edited by Robert Kraus (1993) (copy available on this website or by email to  RLKraus@compuserve.com)

Hugo Gold ed., Die Juden und Judengemeinden Bohmens (1934)

Jiri Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991), pp. 91-92  

International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Cemetery Project, Czech Republic,  Kasejovice

Petr Ehl, Arno Parik, Jiri Fiedler, Old Bohemian and Moravian Jewish Cemeteries (1991), p.  41 (photo), 157-8 (text)

Mokotoff, Gary and Sallyann Amdur Sack, Where Once We Walked: a guide to the Jewish communities destroyed in the holocaust. Teaneck, NJ : Avotaynu, Inc., c1991.

Encyclopedia Judaica

Other CONTRIBUTORS to this report:
Robert Kraus, descendant of Ohrenstiel family in Kasejovice, editor of The Jews of Kasejovice
David Schwager, descendant of Schwager family in Kasejovice
Edie Serfess, friend of Kasejovice