Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków

The Old Synagogue (Polish: Synagoga Stara) was an Orthodox Jewish synagogue situated in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. In Yiddish it was referred to as the Alta Shul. It is the oldest synagogue building still standing in Poland, and one of the most precious landmarks of Jewish architecture in Europe. Until the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, it was one of the city's most important synagogues as well as the main religious, social, and organizational centre of the Kraków Jewish community.The Synagogue was built in 1407 or 1492; the date of building varies with several sources. The original building was rebuilt in 1570 under the watchful eye of an Italian architect Mateo Gucci. The rebuilding included the attic wall with loopholes, windows placed far above ground level, and thick, masonry walls with heavy buttressing to withstand siege, all features borrowed from military architecture. There was further reconstruction work in 1904 and in 1913. The Old Synagogue is a rare, surviving example of a Polish fortress synagogue. In 1794 General Tadeusz Kościuszko spoke from the synagogue to gain the Jewish support in the Kościuszko Uprising. A plaque in the entrance hall commemorates this event: "The Jews proved to the world that whenever humanity can gain, they would not spare themselves." – General Tadeusz Kościuszko The synagogue was completely devastated and ransacked by the Germans during World War II. Its artwork and Jewish relics, looted. During the occupation, the synagogue was used as a warehouse. In 1943, 30 Polish hostages were executed at its wall. The Old Synagogue was renovated from 1956 to 1959 and currently operates as a museum. It is a Division of the Historical Museum of Kraków, with particular focus on Kraków's Jews. The exhibits are divided into themes dealing with birth, prayer rituals, diet, divorce and death. The women's prayer room (mechitza), dating back to the 17th century, is often used to hold temporary exhibitions.

This is a sub-article to Synagogues of Kraków The Wolf Popper Synagogue (Polish: Synagoga Poppera (Bociana)), located in Kraków, Poland, used to be one of the most splendid Jewish houses of prayer in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz established in a suburb earmarked in 1495 by King Jan I Olbracht. The Synagogue was founded by Wolf "The Stork" Popper in early 17th century. Its entrance was once adorned with openwork doors depicting four animals: an eagle, a leopard, a lion, and a buck deer, which symbolize the main traits of a devout man. The synagogue, featuring porches, annexes, Aron Kodesh, rich furniture and decorations, went into a decline not long after the passing of its founder and chief benefactor. At present, Popper Synagogue serves as bookshop and also as an art gallery in the women's area upstairs.Wolf Popper, nicknamed as "the stork" for having been able to stand on one leg when lost in deep thought, founded the synagogue in 1620. He financed its construction towards the end of his life. Popper made his fortune in large-scale international trade in cloth and saltpetre (main ingredient in the making of gunpowder), and eventually, became Kazimierz's richest banker with the fortune reaching 200,000 zloty, which made him one of the richest men in Europe.The Popper family lost much of its wealth following Wolf Popper's death in main part due to historical wars, local epidemics, fires, and costly tributes of allegiance. Once grand Synagogue of Wolf Popper never again enjoyed the wealth of its original sponsor who could prevent its slow but unrelenting decline. The rich interior was utterly destroyed by the Nazi Germans during World War II. The Synagogue ceased to function as a house of prayer after the Holocaust. Its arabesque doors were moved to the Wolfson Museum in Jerusalem. In 1965 the Jewish Council handed over the building to the communist authorities. In the ensuing renovation most traces of its previous religious role were erased and the Old Town Youth Cultural Centre (YCC) was established in its place. At present, the Centre is a vibrant and busy place with long-running programs, educational activities, art studio, and classes in Jewish dance. The YCC Study Workshop on Jewish History and Culture, is an initiative that began in 1995 as the first of its kind in Poland. Art classes are designed to widen the students' knowledge of symbolism and artistic motifs in Jewish art. An annual competition in art and photography is being held there as well as lectures on Jewish Kazimierz, the Holocaust, and series of film showings.

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.

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.

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.

The Galicia Jewish Museum (Polish: Żydowskie Muzeum Galicja) is located in the historic Jewish district of Kazimierz in Kraków, Poland. It is a photo exhibition documenting the remnants of Jewish culture and life in Polish Galicia, which used to be very vibrant in this area.

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 Museum of Municipal Engineering in Kraków or the Muzeum Inżynierii Miejskiej w Krakowie is a municipal museum in Kraków, Poland; located at ul. św. Wawrzyńca 15 street in the centre of historical Kazimierz district. It was established in 1998 by the city, for the purpose of documenting and popularizing the history of the city engineering, transport as well as technological progress. It consists of several buildings housing early trams, buses and motorcycles, radios, industrial machinery and early means of production, as well as many educational aids and displays. The museum is very popular with school children, but also with adults.

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.