Jew portrayed as money-grabbing at Czech city festival

A municipally organised street show in Prague celebrating Czech nationhood featured a skit apparently mocking an Orthodox Jew.

In the skit, police characters remove a man dressed like an Orthodox Jew for demanding money from the event’s host, who wears traditional Czech attire.

Sunday’s event was organised by the 3rd District of Prague.

The Jewish character was named Rozenkrants. “I will get this money from you one way or another,” the actor said, before another actor dressed as a police officer escorted him away. Hundreds of onlookers laughed.

Footage of the scene was circulated on social media, including by Maria Praha, an organiser of artists retreats.

“I wonder why they had to present Jews in such an utterly outdated antisemitic way,” she wrote on Facebook about the organisers. She also included a video she filmed of the Rozenkrants scene, which had more than 1,500 views.

“There were many [Jewish] university professors, journalists, writers, sportsmen/women, composers, social welfare workers and others in Czechoslovakia,” she added, including “Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Hugo Haas, Joseph Popper, Marie Schmolka, Hana Steiner and many, many others.”

Dinah Spritzer-Richter, a journalist living in Prague who has covered Czech Jewry for various publications including JTA, called the scene “disgusting” on Facebook.

The 3rd District of Prague did not immediately reply to a request for comment by JTA.

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