Mordecai Meisel

The source of the great wealth which subsequently enabled him to become the benefactor of his coreligionists and to aid the Austrian imperial house, especially during the Turkish wars, is unknown.

He is mentioned in documents for the first time in 1569, as having business relations with the communal director Isaac Rofe (aka Lékař, meaning medical doctor in Czech), subsequently his father-in-law.

The costly golden and silver vessels with which he and his wife furnished this building either were lost during the lawsuit over his estate or were burned during the conflagrations in the ghetto on 21 June 1689 and 16 May 1754.

The only gifts dedicated by Meisel and his wife to this synagogue that have been preserved are a curtain (paroket) embroidered with hundreds of pearls, a similarly adorned wrapper for the scroll of the Law, and a magnificent bronze ornament for the almemar.

Jacob Segre, rabbi of Casale Monferrato, celebrated the dedication of the synagogue in a poem which is still extant, and his contemporary David Gans, the chronicler of Prague, has described in his Tzemach Dawid the enthusiasm with which the Jewish population received the gift.