9 Iyar · Yahrzeit
Rabbi Avigdor Kara - Prague
Rabbi Avigdor Kara was the son of Rabbi Yitzchak Kara. He was a mekubal and dayan in Prague, who survived the pogrom on Passover of 1389, in which 3,000 Jews were killed.
Yahrzeit - 9 Iyar
Place of burial - Prague
Together with his father, he moved from Regensburg to Prague, where Avigdor, apparently as a child, was forced to witness his father's murder during the pogrom of 1389. It is said that King Wenceslaus IV consulted with him on religious disputes. Later he became a member of the Prague rabbinical court - the Beit Din.
Rabbi Avigdor Kara was a kabbalist. He left behind several surviving manuscript fragments, including the kabbalistic responsa "Even Sapir," allegorical interpretations of the Five Books of Moses, and the kabbalistic work "Kodesh Hillulim."
However, the most famous of his works are his poems, such as the "Selichah Elegy," written about the pogrom of 1389, which is still read on Yom Kippur in the "Old-New Synagogue":
"Many were killed, who knows your number, young men and maidens, old men and infants. L-rd of all souls, I need not remind You, You shall judge them all, You shall illuminate them all. They destroyed even the cemetery of Eternal Freedom, where the bones of my great forefathers rest. They dug up these treasures of mine, they smashed the graves in their fury, to humiliate my pride. Is that still not enough?!"
The image of Avigdor Kara was reworked poetically by the Czech writer Alois Jirásek in his trilogy "Mezi proudy" (Between the Currents).
Avigdor Kara was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, and his tombstone is the oldest surviving one in that cemetery. Due to its poor condition, the stone was transferred to the Jewish Museum at the Maisel Synagogue, and a replica was left in its place at the cemetery.