Most

MOST (Ger. Bruex), city in N.W. Bohemia, Czechoslovakia (town no longer exists). A Jewish moneylender is recorded in Most in 1393; there was a Jewish street situated near the monastery in the 14^th century. When the Jews were expelled in 1453 most of them settled in *Litomerice. One Jew was allowed to settle in Most in 1839, and after 1848 some Jews from the surrounding villages moved to the city. There were 15 Jews in 1861, when a congregation was established; the synagogue was dedicated in 1872. Some of the rabbis of Most later became eminent: Alexander *Kisch (1874–77), Joseph Samuel *Bloch (1877–79), and Gotthard *Deutsch (1884–91). In 1930 there were 662 Jews in Most (2.4% of the total population). The community owed its importance and affluence to the development of lignite mining by the *Petschek and Weimann firms. During the Sudeten crisis the community dispersed, and the synagogue was destroyed on Nov. 10, 1938. The congregation was reestablished in 1945, mainly by Jews from *Subcarpathian Ruthenia, under the administration of the *Usti nad Labem community. In 1975 Most was evacuated to make way for open-cut mining and ceased to exist. The German-Jewish poet Yermiyahu Oskar Neumann (1894–1981), subsequently of Be'er Toviyyah, Israel, was born in Most.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

M. Halberstam, in: H. Gold (ed.), Die Juden und Judengemeinden Boehmens (1934), 70–77; J.C. Pick, in: Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), 374–5; R. Iltis (ed.), Die aussaeen unter Traenen… (1959), 25; G. Deutsch, Scrolls, 2 (1917), 321–40; Bondy-Dworský nos. 180–1, 191, 194–5, 198, 200, 202–8, 214, 216–7, 229, 234, 236–8, 240, 246–7, 254, 266, 271, 277. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991), 194.