Volume 13
Travels with Jirka: Or, Jews and Beer
By Michael Lukas
“Let’s get some mother-fucking beers,” said Petr, our beefy blonde Czech host, about five minutes after we
arrived in Prague. It was three in the afternoon and Nomi and I were both dead tired, having just taken a seven-
hour train from Budapest. I was game for a beer but Nomi, my somewhat less than indefatigable traveling
companion, didn’t seem very excited about the idea. “But you have to have a welcome beer,” said Jirka, Petr’s
short, weasely friend on whose living room floor we were crashing. “This is Prague.”
“When in Prague,” I said, smiling weakly at Nomi. But beer, as I well knew, was not the reason Nomi was
giving me the evil eye. Indeed, beer was already an integral part of our trip, a month-long tour of Central Eastern
Europe, divided equally between getting drunk and exploring our roots. The problem was Jirka, an anti-Semitic,
homophobic, misogynist racist, whom I had insisted on staying with, partially for practical reasons (Petr lived an
hour and a half outside of Prague, with his parents) and partially for reasons of more profound importance, the
kind of reasons that become evident after a few beers.
During the nine months that we lived together in Tunis, Petr had told me more than a few times that the Czech
Republic has the highest per-capita beer consumption in the world, a statistic I never truly appreciated until my
first visit to a Czech bar, which on Wednesday afternoon was more than half full. Doing as the Praguans do, we
drank Staropramen by the liter and consumed enormous amounts of traditional Czech food, a cuisine that seems
to consist exclusively of different variations on the theme of meat and starch. After about three liters of beer,
Jirka put his hand on my shoulder, the way drunk people do when they are about to say something serious.
“Sorry about all that stuff I said in Tunis,” he said. “I had no idea you were Jewish.”
A few months earlier, as we took “welcome shots” of duty-free Absolut on my dining room table, Jirka, whom I
had met just 30 minutes before, began ranting about how much he hated Jews and that, even though he knew the
Holocaust was wrong, he could understand where Hitler was coming from. Stunned, I looked across the table
and watched him pour the next round of shots. He was serious.
Having spent three of the past six years studying and working in the Middle East, I have seen more than my
share of anti-Semitism. I had never confronted anyone before, as the ADL-sponsored workshops of my youth
taught me. But Jirka’s casual, urbane hatred was far more disturbing than the backwards swastikas I had seen
scrawled on Tunisian bus stops. It was in a different league than any Egyptian taxi driver’s conspiracy theories.
Arab anti-Semitism always seemed to me to be born from ignorance and anti-Zionism rather than pure hatred.
But here was a well-educated, cosmopolitan guy with a good job and no geopolitical grudges to speak of. Here
was an anti-Semitism that I couldn’t rationalize.
As he lifted the next shot, I told Jirka that, before we continued our conversation, he should know that I’m
Jewish and that most of my mother’s family was killed in the Holocaust. Embarrassed, he apologized, as if his
defense of genocide was a gauche but understandable faux pas, and we proceeded to have a pretty interesting
discussion: him complaining about the El Al employees he worked with at the Prague airport, and me responding
that, as rude as El Al employees may sometimes be, there are a lot of Jews out there and, in any case, that
doesn’t excuse what he said.
Why would I want to sleep on this guy’s living room floor? Why, as Nomi pleaded, can’t we just stay at a
hostel? As I mentioned, my reasons for wanting to stay with Jirka were partly practical. I certainly wouldn’t have
gone out of my way to sleep on his floor if it hadn’t made sense logistically. And yet, as I thought more and more
about Jirka, I began almost to look forward to spending time with him, like an anti-anti-Semitic missionary itching
to spread the gospel. Naïve as it may sound, I thought, and still do think, that education, not ostracization, is the
proper response to prejudice of any kind. And what better education for Jirka than visiting his country’s historic
Jewish sites with two cool American Jews?
Over the course of the next five days, Jirka, Petr, Nomi and I visited Prague’s Old Town Square, the Charles
Bridge, and the Pilsner Urquell factory, as well as every synagogue, Jewish cemetery, and museum in our Lonely
Planet guide. While I can’t say whether or not Jirka went through the drastic transformation I was hoping for, he
was visibly moved a number of times. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I am going to go ahead and say that it was
an learning experience for everyone involved.
Although Jirka and Petr both knew that the Great Synagogue of Pilsn is the second largest synagogue in Europe,
and the third largest in the world, neither realized quite how many Jews had lived in their home town before
World War II. As testament to this industrial city’s once-quite-large Jewish community, the synagogue’s central
hall is filled with photographs of buildings that once housed Jewish schools, synagogues and kosher butchers.
While I chuckled at the obviousness of the exhibit’s name, “Jews Used to Live Here,” the idea was no less than
a revelation for my Czech hosts.
Like all good cross-cultural learning experiences, the education was reciprocal. After visiting a Holocaust
memorial at the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, I found myself alone with Jirka, walking silently through an exhibit
of historical documents pertaining to a few of the more notable Jews living in Prague at the beginning of the 20th
century. Nothing particularly arresting. But for some reason, this exhibit caused Jirka to reflect.
“Michael,” he asked in a childish, museum voice. “Where does anti-Semitism come from?” I paused and looked
at him, not quite sure if he was serious. I wanted to say something along the lines of “From douche bags like you,
Jirka” but instead I held back and actually thought about the question.
Where does anti-Semitism come from? I thought. Why do people hate Jews, or any other group for that matter?
And how do you explain that to someone like Jirka? Sputtering, I said some things about fear of outsiders, the
rise of nationalism, blood libels, pogroms. But none of my answers really cut mustard. As I tried to think of some
way to explain what I didn’t really understand myself, Jirka interjected. “Maybe it’s that most people don’t
know any Jews.”
It’s an overly simplistic answer, but maybe, on some level, Jirka’s right. Most people in the world have probably
never knowingly met a Jew. Maybe instead of paying for every Jew to go to Israel and make pita with fake
Bedouins, the Birthright Program should pay for us to fan out across the globe and drink beer with the locals,
unless they’re Muslim. With the Muslims we will drink tea. And then we’ll withdraw from the West Bank.
Travels with Jirka: Or, Jews and Beer
By Michael Lukas
“Let’s get some mother-fucking beers,” said Petr, our beefy blonde Czech host, about five minutes after we
arrived in Prague. It was three in the afternoon and Nomi and I were both dead tired, having just taken a seven-
hour train from Budapest. I was game for a beer but Nomi, my somewhat less than indefatigable traveling
companion, didn’t seem very excited about the idea. “But you have to have a welcome beer,” said Jirka, Petr’s
short, weasely friend on whose living room floor we were crashing. “This is Prague.”
“When in Prague,” I said, smiling weakly at Nomi. But beer, as I well knew, was not the reason Nomi was
giving me the evil eye. Indeed, beer was already an integral part of our trip, a month-long tour of Central Eastern
Europe, divided equally between getting drunk and exploring our roots. The problem was Jirka, an anti-Semitic,
homophobic, misogynist racist, whom I had insisted on staying with, partially for practical reasons (Petr lived an
hour and a half outside of Prague, with his parents) and partially for reasons of more profound importance, the
kind of reasons that become evident after a few beers.
During the nine months that we lived together in Tunis, Petr had told me more than a few times that the Czech
Republic has the highest per-capita beer consumption in the world, a statistic I never truly appreciated until my
first visit to a Czech bar, which on Wednesday afternoon was more than half full. Doing as the Praguans do, we
drank Staropramen by the liter and consumed enormous amounts of traditional Czech food, a cuisine that seems
to consist exclusively of different variations on the theme of meat and starch. After about three liters of beer,
Jirka put his hand on my shoulder, the way drunk people do when they are about to say something serious.
“Sorry about all that stuff I said in Tunis,” he said. “I had no idea you were Jewish.”
A few months earlier, as we took “welcome shots” of duty-free Absolut on my dining room table, Jirka, whom I
had met just 30 minutes before, began ranting about how much he hated Jews and that, even though he knew the
Holocaust was wrong, he could understand where Hitler was coming from. Stunned, I looked across the table
and watched him pour the next round of shots. He was serious.
Having spent three of the past six years studying and working in the Middle East, I have seen more than my
share of anti-Semitism. I had never confronted anyone before, as the ADL-sponsored workshops of my youth
taught me. But Jirka’s casual, urbane hatred was far more disturbing than the backwards swastikas I had seen
scrawled on Tunisian bus stops. It was in a different league than any Egyptian taxi driver’s conspiracy theories.
Arab anti-Semitism always seemed to me to be born from ignorance and anti-Zionism rather than pure hatred.
But here was a well-educated, cosmopolitan guy with a good job and no geopolitical grudges to speak of. Here
was an anti-Semitism that I couldn’t rationalize.
As he lifted the next shot, I told Jirka that, before we continued our conversation, he should know that I’m
Jewish and that most of my mother’s family was killed in the Holocaust. Embarrassed, he apologized, as if his
defense of genocide was a gauche but understandable faux pas, and we proceeded to have a pretty interesting
discussion: him complaining about the El Al employees he worked with at the Prague airport, and me responding
that, as rude as El Al employees may sometimes be, there are a lot of Jews out there and, in any case, that
doesn’t excuse what he said.
Why would I want to sleep on this guy’s living room floor? Why, as Nomi pleaded, can’t we just stay at a
hostel? As I mentioned, my reasons for wanting to stay with Jirka were partly practical. I certainly wouldn’t have
gone out of my way to sleep on his floor if it hadn’t made sense logistically. And yet, as I thought more and more
about Jirka, I began almost to look forward to spending time with him, like an anti-anti-Semitic missionary itching
to spread the gospel. Naïve as it may sound, I thought, and still do think, that education, not ostracization, is the
proper response to prejudice of any kind. And what better education for Jirka than visiting his country’s historic
Jewish sites with two cool American Jews?
Over the course of the next five days, Jirka, Petr, Nomi and I visited Prague’s Old Town Square, the Charles
Bridge, and the Pilsner Urquell factory, as well as every synagogue, Jewish cemetery, and museum in our Lonely
Planet guide. While I can’t say whether or not Jirka went through the drastic transformation I was hoping for, he
was visibly moved a number of times. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I am going to go ahead and say that it was
an learning experience for everyone involved.
Although Jirka and Petr both knew that the Great Synagogue of Pilsn is the second largest synagogue in Europe,
and the third largest in the world, neither realized quite how many Jews had lived in their home town before
World War II. As testament to this industrial city’s once-quite-large Jewish community, the synagogue’s central
hall is filled with photographs of buildings that once housed Jewish schools, synagogues and kosher butchers.
While I chuckled at the obviousness of the exhibit’s name, “Jews Used to Live Here,” the idea was no less than
a revelation for my Czech hosts.
Like all good cross-cultural learning experiences, the education was reciprocal. After visiting a Holocaust
memorial at the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, I found myself alone with Jirka, walking silently through an exhibit
of historical documents pertaining to a few of the more notable Jews living in Prague at the beginning of the 20th
century. Nothing particularly arresting. But for some reason, this exhibit caused Jirka to reflect.
“Michael,” he asked in a childish, museum voice. “Where does anti-Semitism come from?” I paused and looked
at him, not quite sure if he was serious. I wanted to say something along the lines of “From douche bags like you,
Jirka” but instead I held back and actually thought about the question.
Where does anti-Semitism come from? I thought. Why do people hate Jews, or any other group for that matter?
And how do you explain that to someone like Jirka? Sputtering, I said some things about fear of outsiders, the
rise of nationalism, blood libels, pogroms. But none of my answers really cut mustard. As I tried to think of some
way to explain what I didn’t really understand myself, Jirka interjected. “Maybe it’s that most people don’t
know any Jews.”
It’s an overly simplistic answer, but maybe, on some level, Jirka’s right. Most people in the world have probably
never knowingly met a Jew. Maybe instead of paying for every Jew to go to Israel and make pita with fake
Bedouins, the Birthright Program should pay for us to fan out across the globe and drink beer with the locals,
unless they’re Muslim. With the Muslims we will drink tea. And then we’ll withdraw from the West Bank.