Seven main synagogues of the Jewish District of Kazimierz are the largest concentration of synagogues in Europe next to Prague. There are four active synagogues:
- Izaak Synagogue: Built in an early Baroque style in 1644. The interior walls are adorned with painted prayers. The vaulted ceiling is embellished with baroque plasterwork wreaths and garlands. Today is is a orthodox, Chabad shul.
- Kupa Synagogue: Built in 1643. It is decorated with paintings from the 1920s but remnants of earlier paintings from the 17th to 18th centuries are also visible (they are ornamental, with leaves and fruit surrounding texts). A carved wood and stucco Torah Ark, from the early 17th century, adorns the interior..
- Remah Synagogue: is named after Rabbi Moses Isserles c.1525–1572, known by the Hebrew acronym ReMA (רמ״א). It is the smalles of the synagogues in the district and located directly next to the old (Remah) cemetery. Build in 1556. The prayer hall features a centrally situated rectangular bimah with a reconstructed wrought-iron enclosure that has two entrances, one displaying an 18th-century polychrome double door coming from a destroyed synagogue outside Krakow.
- Tempel Synagogue: was designed in the 1860s in the Moorish Revival style, on the pattern of the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna, at a time when Krakow was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Aron Kodesh is covered by a gold-leaf dome that evokes the dome over the Sigismund Chapel in the nearby Wawel Cathedral. It also is a booming centre of Jewish culture. During my visit, it was under renovation.
Three synagogues are inactive:
- High Synagogue: built around 1556-1563 in a Romanesque style. It's called the High Synagogue because it was the tallest synagogue in the city and the prayer hall was upstairs. Today it is a bookshop and houses exhibitions.
- Old Synagogue: it is the oldest Jewish house of prayer in Poland, built in 1407 or 1492; the date of building varies with several sources. The original building was rebuilt in 1570. It is characterised by thick masonry walls with heavy buttressing to withstand siege. Now it is housing a Jewish History museum.
- Wolf Popper Synagogue is from the early 17th century. The interior was destroyed by the Nazis. In 1965 the Jewish Council handed over the building to the communist authorities which established a still existing Youth Cultural Centre there.
