There are only few reliable historical reports to give us a coherent picture. Even before Olomouc became a proper town, there had been some settlements around the castle such as the parishes of St. Michael, St. Blaise and St. Maurice and also a Jewish settlement which, according to written accounts and archaeological finds, can be situated to the northern side of the Michael’s Hill.

The presence of Jewish merchants and traders may be assumed by the 11th century at latest. Around the year 1140, the Hebrew traveller Isaac ben Dorbolo mentions the Olomouc Jewish quarter (he refers to the place as Almijz či Olmijz). In the years 1239-46, the older settlements of Olomouc were brought together to establish a royal city. A privilegium granted by Emperor Rudolf Habsburg stated that the municipal expenses were to be borne by its citizens, including the Jews residing in the city. In 1311 the Jews of Olomouc officially welcomed King John of Luxembourg as he passed through the city. The so-called Jewish Register, a record of Jewish loans, from the years 1413-1420 written in Latin, has been preserved. We know that in 1445 there was a Jewish Vogt by the name of Nicholas the Apothecary.

The favourable years, however, were soon to end. Based on the preaching of the Franciscan friar John of Capistrano, King Ladislaus the Posthumous issued a decree on July 22nd 1454 expelling the Jews from Olomouc and Uničov and donating their houses, synagogue and cemetery to the city. Jews had to abandon the city by November 11th leaving their property behind in return for which the citizens pledged to pay the king an annual Jewish tax of 40 threescores Groschen. The expelled Jews found refuge in the neighbouring towns of Prostějov, Tovačov, Přerov, Lipník nad Bečvou and Úsov, from which time the Jewish communities of those places date. For four long centuries thereafter, Jews were not permitted to stay in any royal town, or later in any fortified borough. They were allowed - only on certain days - to dwell on the outskirts, particularly in the Bělidla suburbs where there are references to a Jewish public eating-house between 1792-1861 and where there was a private prayer room from the beginning of the 19th century.

Only the revolutionary year of 1848 did away with such medieval anachronisms bringing full civil rights to Jewish people, including the right of free movement. This triggered an influx of Jews from the surrounding small towns into the large cities, from which they had previously been barred, in search of better economic conditions.

In 1865 a religious association was founded, and in 1892 it turned into an independent religious community. In 1897, the first Zionist congress of the Austrian Empire was held in Olomouc, greeted by Theodor Herzl. The existence of numerous Jewish associations and charitable humanitarian foundation give evidence of Jewish participation in social, cultural and political life of the city. At the time of the First World War, the town provided a safe haven for hundreds of Jewish refugees from Galicia.

The flourishing Jewish community was brought to an end by the tragic years of Nazi occupation. The citizens of Jewish origin, who became subject to the so-called Nuremberg Laws, were gradually deprived of all rights and property. In the course of five deportations a total of 3,498 people from the city and its surroundings were transported to Terezín and later to extermination camps in the East. Their memory is honoured each spring on Yom Ha-Shoah memorial day with a remembrance ceremony in the ceremonial hall of the new Jewish cemetery in Neředín.

The Jewish citizens who survived the horrors of the war restored the religious community in 1945. The number of members of the Olomouc community declined due to old age and emigration and in 1962, as part of a new regional arrangement, the Olomouc congregation became a mere synagogal choir, part of the Jewish Religious Community of Ostrava. Only the democratic transformation after 1989 brought a revival of religious practice to Olomouc. By April 1st 1991 a separate religious community was re-established, covering the districts of Olomouc, Šumperk, Jeseník, Bruntál and Přerov.