Jewish Community Centre of Krakow

The Tempel Synagogue (Polish: Synagoga Tempel) is a synagogue in Kraków, Poland, in the Kazimierz district. Tempel Synagogue is not only a major place of worship, but also a booming center of Jewish culture, which hosts numerous concerts and meetings, especially during the Festival.

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 school which was situated adjacent to the prayer hall. During World War II, the Nazis vandalized the synagogue. At the end of the war, the synagogue was converted into apartments. Since the summer of 1990, it has been used as a hostel for the poor. Nothing remains today indicating its former use as a synagogue.

The Kraków pogrom was the first anti-Jewish riot in post World War II Poland, that took place on 11 August 1945 in the Soviet-occupied city of Kraków, Poland. The incident was part of anti-Jewish violence in Poland towards and after the end of World War II. The immediate cause of the pogrom was a blood libel rumour of a ritual murder of Polish children by Jews in the city. A false allegation that a child had been abducted by a Jewish woman had grown to allegations that Jews had killed up to 80 children over the course of weeks. These allegations led to attacks on Jews, as well as some Poles mistaken for Jews, in the Kazimierz quarter, and other parts of the Old Town, and the burning of the Kupa Synagogue. At least one person was killed and an unknown number were injured.

Kazimierz (Polish pronunciation: [kaˈʑimjɛʂ]; Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish: קוזמיר, romanized: 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 Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of the Old Town of Kraków, separated from it by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place where ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures coexisted and intermingled. The northeastern part of the district was historically Jewish. In 1941, the Jews of Kraków were forcibly relocated by the German occupying forces into the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgórze, and most did not survive the war. Today, Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city. The boundaries of Kazimierz are defined by an old island in the Vistula river. The northern branch of the river (Stara Wisła – Old Vistula) was filled-in at the end of the 19th century during the partitions of Poland and made into an extension of ul. Stradomska Street connecting Kazimierz district with Kraków Old Town.

The Judaica Foundation is a foundation located at ul. Meiselsa 17 street in Kraków, Poland, dedicated to preserving the city's Jewish culture. It was created in 1991. The idea for the foundation was established already in the 1980s, influenced by the President of the Jewish community of Kraków. Committed to preserving the Jewish heritage in Kraków's old Jewish district of Kazimierz and to opening up a new platform for intercultural dialogue, the Foundation also aims at spurring interest among young people for the Jewish culture and history. The Centre for Jewish Culture run by the Judaica Foundation opened in 1993. It resides in Kazimierz at a former house of prayer (Beit Tefillah) built in the 1880s and modernized in 1989-1993. The building served religious purposes right until the outbreak of World War II. In 1993 it was thoroughly restored with the help of various organisations. Today the Centre serves as a venue for lectures, workshops and exhibitions such as the Aleksander and Alicja Hetz Annual Memorial Lecture or the Settimana della Cultura Ebraica which is organised together with the Italian Institute for Culture in Kraków.

The Old Jewish Cemetery of Kraków (Polish: Stary cmentarz żydowski w Krakowie), more commonly known as the Remah Cemetery (Polish: Cmentarz Remuh), is a historic necropolis established in the years 1535–1551, and one of the oldest existing Jewish cemeteries in Poland. It is situated at 40 Szeroka Street in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, beside the 16th-century Remah Synagogue. The cemetery bears the name of Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose name is abbreviated as Remah. The cemetery was closed in around 1850; the nearby New Jewish Cemetery at 55 Miodowa Street then became the new burial ground for the city's Jews.Izaak Jakubowicz, donor of the Izaak Synagogue, is also buried at the cemetery.During the German occupation of Poland, the Nazis destroyed the site by tearing down walls and hauling away tombstones to be used as paving stones in the camps, or selling them for profit. The tombstone of the Remah (Rabbi Moses Isserles) is one of the few that remained intact. The cemetery has undergone a series of post-war restorations. As is common in contemporary Poland, all original tombstones unearthed as paving stones have been returned and re-erected, although they represent a small fraction of the monuments that once stood in the cemetery.

The Izaak Synagogue (Polish: 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 Jakubowicz (d. 1673), also called Isaac the Rich, a banker to King Ladislaus IV of Poland. The synagogue was designed by Italian-born architect Francesco Olivierri.

The Remah Synagogue (Polish: 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 Hebrew acronym ReMA (רמ״א, pronounced ReMU) who's famed for writing a collection of commentaries and additions that complement Rabbi Yosef Karo's Shulchan Aruch, with Ashkenazi traditions and customs. It is currently one of two active synagogues in the city.

High Synagogue is an inactive 16th-century Orthodox Jewish synagogue located in the Kazimierz District of Kraków, Poland. Also known as the "Tall Synagogue", the name corresponds to its height or, alternatively, because the prayer hall was situated upstairs. It is the tallest synagogue in the city and is an example of Late Renaissance architecture.

Kowea Itim le-Tora Synagogue was an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Kazimierz, Kraków, Poland. It was built in 1810 and renovated in 1912. The synagogue was devastated during World War II by Nazis. The building now serves as an apartment building.

The Corpus Christi Basilica (Polish: Bazylika Bożego Ciała), located in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland is a Gothic church founded by King Casimir III the Great in 1335.

The Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków (Polish: Festiwal Kultury Żydowskiej w Krakowie, Yiddish: ייִדישער קולטור־פֿעסטיוואַל אין קראָקע) is an annual cultural event organized since 1988 in the once Jewish district of Kazimierz (part of Kraków) by the Jewish Culture Festival Society headed by Janusz Makuch, a self-described meshugeneh ("crazy person"), fascinated with all things Jewish. The main goal of the festival is to educate people about Jewish culture, history and faith (Judaism), which flourished in Poland before the Holocaust, as well as to familiarize them with modern Jewish culture developing mostly in the United States and Israel, and finally, to provide entertainment. Each festival is held in late June or early July and takes nine days, from Saturday to Sunday. During that time concerts, exhibitions, plays, lectures, workshops, tours, etc. are organized. The two most important concerts are: the inaugural concert on the first Sunday, and the final concert on the last Saturday of the festival. The former usually takes place in one of seven synagogues of Kazimierz and features cantoral music; the latter is always held outdoors, in Ulica Szeroka, the main street of the Jewish part of Kazimierz, and features klezmer music. In between there are many more concerts, usually with some variations of klezmer music. The workshops provide an occasion to learn about traditional Jewish cuisine, dance, music, calligraphy and other aspects of Jewish culture. More about Jewish culture, as well as about topics related to the Holocaust, is taught at numerous lectures. Exhibitions of Jewish art, particularly paper-cut, are also organized. The program of the festival also includes tours of the synagogues and cemeteries of Kazimierz as well as the former Nazi-era Kraków Ghetto in the nearby district of Podgórze. During the festival Gentiles are also invited to watch or participate in Jewish prayers at the synagogue. Jewish Culture Festival brings together artists of Jewish culture from all over the world - music bands, soloists, choirs, jazz musicians and dance teachers. The festival promotes a whole variety of different styles of Jewish music: synagogue song, hasidic, classical, Jewish folk and – very popular in Krakow nowadays – klezmer. For the Poles this event is a way of promotion of Jewish culture and paying a homage to the community that used to live in Poland, although many Jews were reportedly offended by the commercialization of Polish Jewish culture. "Others argue that there is something deeper taking place in Poland as the country heals from the double wounds of Nazi and Communist domination."It is one of Poland's major annual cultural events and one of the biggest festivals of Jewish culture in the world. Artists and entertainers usually associated with the festival include: Benzion Miller, Yaakov Stark, David Krakauer, Frank London, Leopold Kozłowski, Michael Alpert, Theodore Bikel, Paul Brody and many others. Jewish dances are led by Steven Weintraub.