The synagogues of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

are a collection of monuments of Jewish

sacred architecture Sacral architecture (also known as sacred architecture or religious architecture) is a religious architectural practice concerned with the design and construction of places of worship or sacred or intentional space, such as churches, mosques, stu ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. The seven main synagogues of the Jewish District of

Kazimierz Kazimierz (; la, Casimiria; yi, קוזמיר, Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the ...

constitute the largest such complex in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

next to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. These are: # The Old Synagogue #

Wolf Popper Synagogue :''This is a sub-article to Synagogues of Kraków The Wolf Popper Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Poppera (Bociana)), located in Kraków, Poland, was a place of worship from its founding in 1620 until 1965. It used to be one of the most splendid Jewi ...

Remah Synagogue The Remah Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Remu) is a 16th-century Jewish temple and the smallest of all historic synagogues in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. The synagogue is named after Rabbi Moses Isserles (c.1525–1572), known by the Hebr ...

# High Synagogue #

Izaak Synagogue The Izaak Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Izaaka), formally known as the Isaak Jakubowicz Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue from 1644 situated in the historic Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. The synagogue is named for its donor, Izaak J ...

# Temple Synagogue #

Kupa Synagogue Kupa Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Kupa) is a 17th-century synagogue in Kraków, Poland. It is located in the former Jewish quarter of Kazimierz developed from a neighborhood earmarked in 1495 by King John I Albert (Polish: Jan I Olbracht) for the ...

(it is worth noting 2 other houses of prayer, both from the 19th century, which could easily be classed as synagogues, both of them on Mieselsa street: the B'nea Emun prayer house and the Hevre Tehillim, psalm brotherhood house of prayer) It is a unique on the European scale religious complex prescribed on the list of UNESCO world heritage sites along with the entire city district in 1978, as the first ever.

History

was an influential centre of Jewish spiritual life before the

outbreak of World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, with all its manifestations of religious observance from

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

, to

Chasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

and

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

flourishing side by side. There were at least ninety prayer-houses in Kraków active before the

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invasion of Poland, serving its burgeoning

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish community of 60,000–80,000 (out of the city's total population of 237,000), established since the early 12th century. Most synagogues of Kraków were ruined during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

who despoiled them of all ceremonial objects, and used them as storehouses for ammunition, firefighting equipment, and as general storage facilities. The post-

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Jewish population of the city had dwindled to about 5,900 before the end of the 1940s, and by 1978, the number was further reduced in size to a mere 600 by some estimates. In recent time, thanks to the efforts of the local Jewish and Polish organizations including foreign financial aid from Akiva Kahane, many synagogues and prayer-houses underwent major restorations, while others continue to serve as

apartments An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are man ...

Main synagogues

The synagogues of Kraków represent virtually all European architectural styles of the past millennium, including

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

Neoclassicism Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...

and

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. Among the most prominent are: the Old Synagogue, the High Synagogue,

, Tempel Synagogue,

and the Izaak Jakubowicz Synagogue. At present, only two of them are still active, and only one serves as a house of prayer, the

Remuh Synagogue The Remah Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Remu) is a 16th-century Jewish temple and the smallest of all historic synagogues in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. The synagogue is named after Rabbi Moses Isserles (c.1525–1572), known by the Hebr ...

.Adam Dylewski
Where the Tailor Was a Poet...
website created under the aegis of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw; chief editor: Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski. Editorial assistance: Dr. Anna Marta Szczepan-Wojnarska, and Kaja Wieczorek from Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

The Jewish History Museum

The Old Synagogue on Szeroka Street, is the oldest Jewish house of prayer in Poland, built in 1407. Nowadays, the synagogue serves as the Jewish History Museum, a Division of the

Historical Museum of Kraków The Historical Museum of the City of Kraków ( pl, Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa) in Kraków, Lesser Poland, was granted the status of an independent institution in 1945. Originally, it was a branch of the Old Records Office of Kraków, in oper ...

. The exhibits are divided into four sections: synagogue furnishings and paraphernalia, Jewish rituals and festivals, the history of Kazimierz District, and the

. The museum features numerous items related to religious ceremonies, for example, candle holders,

Chanukah or English translation: 'Establishing' or 'Dedication' (of the Temple in Jerusalem) , nickname = , observedby = Jews , begins = 25 Kislev , ends = 2 Tevet or 3 Tevet , celebrations = Lighting candles each night ...

and menorot lamps, covers for the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

, parochot

Holy Ark A Torah ark (also known as the ''Heikhal'', or the ''Aron Kodesh'') refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls. History The ark, also known as the ''ark of law'', or in Hebrew the ''Aron Kodesh'' or ''aron ha- ...

covers,

tallit A tallit ''talit'' in Modern Hebrew; ''tālēt'' in Sephardic Hebrew and Ladino language, Ladino; ''tallis'' in Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish language, Yiddish. Mishnaic Hebrew, Mish. pl. טליות ''telayot''; Heb. pl. טליתות ''tallitot' ...

prayer shawls, and

kippah A , , or , plural ), also called ''yarmulke'' (, ; yi, יאַרמלקע, link=no, , german: Jarmulke, pl, Jarmułka or ''koppel'' ( yi, קאפל ) is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, traditionally worn by Jewish males to fulfill the c ...

s or yarmulkes. The museum holds also a considerable collection of books including 2,500 volumes of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

manuscripts and prints. On the walls, there are original oil paintings on display made by

Maurycy Gottlieb Maurycy Gottlieb ; 21/28 February 1856 – 17 July 1879) was a Polish realist painter of the Romantic period. Considered one of the most talented students of Jan Matejko, Gottllieb died at the age of 23. Career Gottlieb was born in Drohobycz ...

Józef Mehoffer Józef Mehoffer (19 March 1869 – 8 July 1946) was a Polish painter and decorative artist, one of the leading artists of the Young Poland movement and one of the most revered Polish artists of his time. Life Mehoffer was born in Ropczyce, ...

Tadeusz Popiel Tadeusz Popiel (1863, Szczucin - 22 February 1913, Kraków) was a Polish painter, known for his religious and historical scenes; especially his work on several famous panoramas. His brother was the sculptor, Antoni Popiel. Biography He was bo ...

, Jerzy Potrzebowski and Jonasz Stern.The Jewish Krakow
Old Synagogue. ''A guide to Kazimierz''.
Page stored at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

The Remah Synagogue

The

( he, רמ״א) on the west side of Szeroka, currently one of the few functioning synagogues in the city, is perhaps the most interesting of all Kraków's synagogues, built along the old row houses ('' kamienice''). It was founded in 1556 by a royal banker, Izrael (Isserl) son of Joseph, for his own son the great

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

Moses Isserles ). He is not to be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as "Ramah" ( he, רמ״ה, italic=no, links=no), nor with Menahem Azariah da Fano, known as "Rema MiPano" ( he, רמ״ע מפאנו, italic=no, links=no). Rabbi Moses Isserles ( he, משה ...

also known as Remah, who already in his youth was famed for his erudition. There are also a Remah Cemetery named after him, and the

mikvah Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purifi ...

. Located further down on Szeroka Street is the Synagogue of Wolf Popper, the father of

Joachim Edler von Popper Joachim Edler von Popper (20 October 1722 – 11 May 1795) came from family of entrepreneurs and communal leaders from Březnice (''Breznitz'') in the Kingdom of Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. His father, Wolf Popper, was a Primator (Chief Jud ...

. It serves as a bookshop now.

The High Synagogue

Equally notable are the High Synagogue on Jozefa Street, built in 1556-1563 in a Romanesque style, and the

, founded in 1643 by the Jewish district's kehilla (a municipal self-government) as foundation for the local kahal.Hebrew University of Jerusalem
"Exploring the Synagogues of Poland: Wall Painting and Decoration"
from the

The Isaak Jakubowicz Synagogue built in 1644, is located on Kupa Street.Isaak Synagogue, Krakow, Poland
/ref> Currently it houses Kraków's

Chabad Lubavitch Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups ...

community. The Tempel Synagogue on Miodowa Street, was designed in the 1860s, on the pattern of the

Leopoldstädter Tempel The Leopoldstädter Tempel was the largest synagogue of Vienna, in the district (Bezirk) of Leopoldstadt. It was also known as the Israelitische Bethaus in der Wiener Vorstadt Leopoldstadt. It was built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style by the ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, at a time when Kraków was part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

.JewishKrakow.net
A guide to Tempel Synagogue
as well as the Krakow's old Jewish quarter Right after

was built at the side of the Tempel Synagogue, as the

's mikvah was no longer able to serve. (The

at the Tempel Synagogue is currently serving men only). On Józefa Street, there's the Kowea Itim le-Tora House of Prayer established in 1810 (probably built before this time). It was once owned by the Society for the Study of the Torah hence its name.

Active synagogues

* Izaak Jakubowicz Synagogue * Tempel Synagogue

Inactive synagogues

Bobov Synagogue (Kraków) The Bobov Synagogue in Kraków, Poland, was established in 1871 by followers of Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam of Bobov. Located at 12 Estery Street, the synagogue was founded on the first story of an apartment block and also contained a Talmudic scho ...

* Old Synagogue, now housing a Jewish History museum *

* High Synagogue

Gallery

File:Krakow Synagoga Stara 20070920 xxyy.jpg, Old Synagogue File:tempel-01.jpg, Tempel Synagogue File:Krakow Synagoga Tempel 20071111 1136 2125.jpg, Tempel Synagogue, interior File:RemuhSynagogue1.JPG,

File:Remuh-01.jpg, Remuh Synagogue, interior File:Krakow PopperSynagogue 7005.jpg,

File:Krakow synagogue 20060802 1730.jpg,

File:SynagogaKupa 09.JPG, Kupa Synagogue, interior File:Krakow Synagoga 20070930 1539.jpg,

File:Krakow synagogue 20070814 1711.jpg, Mizrachi Synagogue,

File:Krakow synagoga 20070805 1115 1.jpg, Kowea Itim le-Tora File:Krakow Synagoga Zuckera 20071110 1212 2009.jpg, Zucker Synagogue,

Podgórze Podgórze is a district of Kraków, Poland, situated on the right (southern) bank of the Vistula River, at the foot of Lasota Hill. The district was subdivided in 1990 into six new districts, see present-day districts of Kraków for more details. ...

File:Krakow Jozefa36 20070831 1646.jpg, Chewra

Ner Tamid Malta - Mosta - Rotunda in 57 ies. A sanctuary lamp, chancel lamp, altar lamp, everlasting light, or eternal flame is a light that shines before the altar of sanctuaries in many Jewish and Christian places of worship. Prescribed in Exodus 27:20-2 ...

Synagogue File:SynagogaChasRadKrakow3.JPG, Chassids from

Radomsko Radomsko is a city in southern Poland with 44,700 inhabitants (2021). It is situated on the Radomka river in the Łódź Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been in Piotrków Trybunalski Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the county seat ...

File:Krakow synagogue 20070804 1043.jpg, Bne Emuna Prayerhouse File:Krakow Jozefa22 20070930 1533.jpg, Ahawat Tora File:Krakow Szpitalna24 20061021 1345.jpg, Ahawat Raim File:SynagogaChasBobKrakow2.JPG, Bobov Synagogue File:Krakow synagogue 20070805 1040.jpg, Chewra Thilim Synagogue File:Kazimierz 2007-01-08 013.jpg, Deiches Synagogue File:Krakow Synagoga Wysoka 20071010 1659.jpg, High Synagogue File:Synagoga wysoka malowidla.jpg, High Synagogue, interior File:Krakow swAgnieszki5 20061009 1706.jpg, Cypres Prayerhouse File:Synagogamostowa82.JPG, Lednitzer Synagogue File:Krakow Jozefa15 20070920 1739.jpg, Chassids from

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975–1 ...

File:Krakow Dietla64 20070920 1711.jpg, Damasz Prayerhouse File:TalmudToraKrakow1.JPG, Talmud Torah Synagogue File:Krakow Bochenska4 20070814 1657.jpg, Szejrit Bne Emun Synagogue

List of Kraków synagogues by street name

''For list of Synagogues in alphabetical order, please use table-sort buttons.'' :

Notes and references

External links

List of synagogues and Betei Midrash in Kraków between the wars
* Traces of the Past
Synagogues of Krakow

Engraving of synagogue interior

A guide to Kazimierz, Krakow's Jewish Quarter
including th
Old Synagogue: ul. Szeroka 24

Who's who in the Jewish World?
* The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot
The Remuh Synagogue of Krakow, Poland
* The Jews of Kraków and its Surrounding Towns

* Michał Rożek, ''Żydowskie zabytki krakowskiego Kazimierza'',

1990, * Aneta Kalemba
"Poland: Online presentation"
* Jewish guide and genealogy in Poland - Casimir / Kazimier

{{DEFAULTSORT:Synagogues of Krakow Synagogues in Kraków,