We start the Vinohrady IWalk by contemplating the Jewish identity of its inhabitants.

Gaining civic rights brought an unexpected question for the new generation of Jews in Bohemia: what made them Jewish? In the past, the persecution and forced isolation made the perimeters of Jewish existence quite clear. The modern, secular world also took away the unifying power of religion.

Some Jews remained loyal to the German-speaking culture of the Austro-Hungarian empire that gave them equality, some Jews, especially those from the countryside, considered themselves a part of the Czech nation and joined its struggle for self-determination. Others started regarding their Jewishness as a national trait of a Jewish nation, a nation that, similarly to the Czechs, deserved its own national state.