In 1869 the most widely read Czech newspaper of the period, Národní listy, confronted its readers with a series of front-page feuilletons titled "Pro strach židovský" ["For Fear of the Jews"]. Written by the well-known prose writer, poet and journalist Jan Neruda (1834–1891), the feuilletons proved to be one of the most articulate Czech anti-Semitic statements of the nineteenth century. Their author was prominent. Neruda was broadly acclaimed during his life and, in contrast to contemporaries whose significance is today sustained only through textbooks and academic historiography, continues to occupy a major place in the Czech literary canon. His works are widely read, translated and enjoyed, while critics, scholars and readers repeatedly return to him as an example of a democratic mind capable of empathy and social insight. At the same time, literary scholarship is rather elusive regarding his feuilletons "For Fear of the Jews". In a striking contrast to the never-ending debate over Richard Wagner’s anti-Semitism, neither Neruda’s feuilletons nor the numerous anti-Jewish passages in his texts have seemed worthy of a critical discussion—as if there were no case to be made.

A new, monothematic issue of the journal Judaica Bohemiae (46/2011, 2) – Jan Neruda and Jews. Texts and Contexts – focuses on Jan Neruda’s relationship with the Jews, specifically on his anti-Semitic writings, which are presented, analyzed and placed in the broader cultural and political context of Czech and European history from the 1850s to the 1870s. The papers published in the journal were originally presented at a workshop of the same name, which was held by the Jewish Museum in Prague and the Institute for Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences in October 2010.

The introductory text is by Michal Frankl and Jindřich Toman. This is followed by Michal Frankl’s overview of the discussion concerning Jews and the “Jewish question” in the Czech press in the 1860s, which places Neruda’s anti-Jewish views in the context of the day. Jindřich Toman points to Neruda’s significant contribution to the creation of a negative image of the Jews in the 1860s and 1870s and to the emergence of modern Czech anti-Semitism. Marek Nekula analyzes the image of Jews in Neruda’s ‘Lesser Town Tales’ in the context of the anti-Jewish discourse of the day. Referring to the example of Karel Havlíček Borovský’s and Neruda’s relationship to Siegfried Kapper, Kateřina Čapková examines the anti-Jewish discourses in the Czech national movement. Václav Petrbok deals with the question of the relationship between Neruda and David Kuh – a prominent figure in Prague’s German-language liberal milieu of the 1850s–70s – against the background of the Czech-German conflict.