Czech Jews joined their fellow citizens in mourning the death of former President Vaclav Havel.
Havel, who as Czechoslovakia’s first post-Communist president repeatedly denounced anti-Semitism, died Dec. 18 after a long illness. He was 75.
A statement from the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities said Jews had respected Havel as a statesman and a world-renowned writer.
“The Jewish community in the Czech Republic would like to thank him for everything he did for the citizens of this country,” the statement said, adding that Havel would “be gratefully remembered for his crucial contribution to good relations between the Czech Republic and Israel.”
The dissident playwright and human rights champion helped lead Prague’s 1989 “Velvet Revolution” and was a hero in the Cold War struggle for democracy in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.
In 1977 he was a co-author of the human rights manifesto Charter 77, which became the catalyst for the Czech dissident cause.
Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia on Dec. 29, 1989, just weeks after the collapse of communism.
Havel demonstrated his commitment to Jewish causes by making one of his first foreign trips a three-day visit to Israel. He brought along 180 Czech Jews on the April 1990 excursion.
After the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated into two countries in 1993, he was elected president of the Czech Republic and served until 2003.
In 2010, he was one of the founding members of the Friends of Israel group of international political figures.
The European Jewish Congress called Havel a “great friend of the Jews” who “did much to confront anti-Semitism and teach the lessons of the dark chapter of the Holocaust during his two terms in office.”
In a letter to the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, the Conference of European Rabbis described Havel as “the emblematic symbol of peaceful change from totalitarianism to democracy” in Eastern and Central Europe and “an indefatigable fighter for freedom of all peoples.” — jta