In their enthusiasm for radical makeovers, the city fathers' original plan for urban renewal also called for this building, the Jewish Town Hall, to be demolished.  But, in the end, it wasn't.  Apparently its centrality to the history of the Ghetto prevailed, having been its administrative center since the 17th century.  Or perhaps these administrators were simply taken with its clock, which runs backwards.  Not that the clock represents an attempt to tell us that time actually goes in this direction.  Rather, it is the result of the fact that Hebrew, because it is read from right to left, seemed to logically dictate that a clock utilizing Hebrew numerals should also run in a contrary direction.   Or at least this was the literal interpretation of the builders of the clock.  Actually most Hebrew clocks run clockwise since, like mechanical clocks in general, they duplicate the movement of their predecessor, the sundial, whose shadow (in the northern hemisphere) moves in what we now call a clockwise direction. 

Currently, the Jewish Town Hall is the central office of the Council of Jewish Religious Communities in the Czech Republic.