Gaining full civil liberty brought a new generation of Jews in Moravia and Silesia a question unknown until then: what was Jewish about their lives?
Previously, everything was clear, isolation and persecution clearly defined the boundaries of their existence. Now, anti-Jewish laws had been repealed and the role of religion receded into the background in the modern world.
Some Jews professed their affiliation with the German-speaking culture that brought equal rights to them, part of the Jews considered themselves part of the Czech nation and were involved in the struggle for Czech national sovereignty. Jews who were more traditional, especially those from the former Galicia, refused the modern world and remained faithful to all the religious regulations and rituals. Others began to regard their Jewishness as a sign of a Jewish nation that, like the Czech nation, deserved its own national state - and became Zionists.
The photo shows the mother of Ervin Krumholz.