Leopold Weisel

The physician Leopold Weisel, born in the Czech city of Prestitz (Preštice), was among the first to collect the Jewish folktales of his homeland, a project he worked on with the non-Jewish folklorist Franz Klutschak. The proto–oral histories became the foundation for the popular “ghetto fiction” genre. In addition to being a gifted storyteller, Weisel wrote several articles in support of Czech national freedom during the upheavals of 1848. Although he converted to Christianity upon his marriage to a Catholic woman, Weisel continued to preserve and popularize stories of traditional Bohemian and Czech Jewish life.