Rabbi Karol Sidon

* 1942

  • “I was never detained for long; the maximum was 2x24 hours but that happened awefully frequently. They bothered me fairly intensely and I dare say maybe even more than the others with the exception of those who were imprisoned for longer time such as Václav Havel. For that reason, I was seriously contemplating emigration, thinking that it wouldn’t take long before they locked me up for some reason as well, or before I would have to stop seeing people. Which I couldn’t have imagined. So I opted for emigration.“

  • “When the tanks arrived, I had suddenly realized – by that time I was already working in the Literární listy magazine – that history wasn’t going the way we wished for. Many of my communist – or actually, not so communist anymore – older friends from Literárky believed that world was always evolving for the better. I had also said and written it somewhere when suddenly I could hear Lamentations in my head: ‘All her gates are desolate…’ and so on. It was an awakening which confirmed a feeling I had that all nice things in life can disappear in a flash.”

  • “My sis’ used to go to the Jewish community meetings. Olina had some acquaintance there so I also started attending. I began studying Hebrew and it took me ten years before I felt I was ready to consider myself to be a believer. Don’t forget that I was the child of my times. When I came home and said I intended to convert to Judaism, my daddy said: ‘Karel, don’t be silly, everyone is giving up on it.’ All his wisdom practically consisted of him saying: ‘But there is only one God, isn’t there?’”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 18.03.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 01:57:46
  • 2

    Praha, 02.05.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 02:08:23
  • 3

    Praha 1, 21.11.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 01:02:51
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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If you don’t publish in our favor, you won’t publish at all

Karol Sidon was born on 9 August 1942 in Prague. His father Alexander Sidon was of Slovak Jewish descent, his mother was a Czech Christian. In 1944 his father was arrested by the Gestapo and before the end of the year was executed in the Terezín fort. For several months prior to the end of the war, Karol and his mother went into hiding for fear of deportation. His mother remarried in 1948. Her second husband was also of Jewish descent, a survivor of several concentration camps. In 1960 Karol Sidon graduated from high school and in 1964 finished studies of screenplay and dramaturgy at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He worked in the Czechoslovak Radio, in the Short Film company, and as an editor of Literární listy magazine. Ever since late 1960s he had publisjed novels (Dream about My Father, Dream about Myself, The Sting of God), wrote theatre plays, and collaborated with film director Juraj Jakubisko on several movies. Since 1970 the regime prevented him from publishing and he had to do manual labor. He signed Charter 77 as a result of which he was followed by the secret police and detained several times. In 1978 he converted to Judaism. Under police pressure in 1983 he decided to seek exile in Germany. He studied Judaism in Heidelberg, continuing in 1990 in Israel. Ever since 1992 he held the function of the Chief Rabbi of the City of Prague and of the Czech Republic. Ever since 2014 he has been publishing fiction under the pseudonym of Chajim Cigan. He is a father of four children, is divorced and lives in Prague.