By Samuel D. Gruber and Carol Herselle Krinsky
Description
The Old (Staary or Alt) Synagogue is located at the end of Szeroka Street in Jewish Kazimierz in Krakow. It is a large double-nave masonry synagogue, probably built after 1494, when Jews were confined to this district, then outside of the capital city of Krakow. The synagogue might have been built before 1519; when there was a dispute between the Polish-born and the native Bohemian Jews for possession of an "old" synagogue, though most likely not this building. The synagogue is the oldest in Krakow, but the last of the double-nave synagogues built in Central and Eastern Europe (others in Germany, Prague, Budapest, Maribor, and finally Krakow). Subsequently, technical and liturgical developments encouraged new forms of synagogue design.
The original building probably included the main hall, divided into two naves by columns, a porch on the north-west side, kahal (community) and ancillary rooms on the west side, and a small building attached on the south. Today’s appearance mostly dates to a rebuilding by architect Mateo Gucci following a fire in 1557 but which has been renovated and rebuilt many times. A pre-fire synagogue building might have had a gabled roof, masonry buttresses, pointed-arch windows, different capitals, and other details, but Gucci created Renaissance interior decoration and an attic story. Around 1600, a women’s prayer space was added along the north wall. The present horizontal roofline is created by the arcaded attic, common in Polish Renaissance architecture. Inside are round-headed windows, capitals, and the ark (the cabinet where the Torah is stored) and bimah (the platform from which the Torah is read) with Renaissance forms. A few earlier details survive, including four-part ribbed groin vaults and traces of wall shafts that were replaced by corbels on three interior walls.
In September 1939, the Germans, who occupied the city, used the Old Synagogue as a warehouse, and subsequently looted and stripped the building of its Gothic vaulting and central columns, leaving it a ruin used as a public latrine. It was rebuilt as a museum after the war.
Significance
Jewish settlement in the Krakow area is documented from 1304. A synagogue was first mentioned in 1356. Polish kings found Jews useful for stimulating commerce, and after a pogrom in Prague in 1389, Bohemian Jews came to Krakow, linking the two centers culturally. Charters established Jews’ right to have a synagogue. First, Jews lived in Krakow proper, but after a fire in 1494 Jews were required to relocate to Kazimierz, then outside the city.
Kazimierz’s surviving synagogues, “embody the history of an important center of traditional Jewish culture and of Kabbalistic lore, of Jewish law, and of Jewish self-government in the years when Cracow was the seat of the Little Poland district within the Jewish Council of the Four Lands.” (Krinsky 1985) Jews probably established a place for prayer soon after 1494. Legend puts the date of the Old Synagogue to the 14th century, but Krinsky believes there were not enough Jews in Kazimierz to warrant building such a large two-nave synagogue. In 1469, two synagogues had been closed in Krakow when the Jews were forced to move elsewhere; nevertheless, as Jews continued to live in Krakow for another quarter-century, there must have been other synagogues available there after 1469, making a large synagogue in Kazimierz superfluous.
Two-nave buildings existed in Poland since the 13th century (monastic chapter house at Koprzywnica), and 14th-century examples include the convent chapel at Krakow and churches at Stopnica and Wislica. The Kazimierz building, while taller than the Prague synagogue in absolute measurement (10.15 m. compared to 97 m. at Prague), appears to be broader, as is characteristic of Renaissance buildings. The height-to-width proportions are 10.15:17 m. at Kazimierz and 9.7:14.3 m. at Prague. Kazimierz synagogue columns are 60 cm. in diameter, compared to 85 cm. at Prague, and the walls are thinner, indicating a better understanding of statics.
At Kazimierz, the bimah is prominent as a central polygonal and canopied wrought-iron cage enclosing the elevated platform (the present bimah is a replica). Plans made in the early 20th century show the bimah slightly off-center. For liturgical purposes, Krakow Rabbi Moses Isserles (the ReMu) argued for a central bimah but did require it to be exactly dead center. The ark steps rise between two low wall spurs, as at the Prague Altneuschul.
The floor of the Synagogue was lower than grade. This was common in many medieval and early modern synagogues where restrictions (implicit or explicit) regulated the height of Jewish buildings. The lower floor level allowed greater interior height. And subsequently facilitated the addition of women's galleries and other annexes from the 17th through the 19th century. An 1865 painting shows movable seats and lecterns. There were bronze chandeliers (the German commandant of the area during the Second World War confiscated them for his own residence). There were painted inscriptions on the north wall and on the south annex walls, probably added in the late 19th or early 20th century.
The Old Synagogue was restored in 1773 and reconstructed in 1889. The government-funded conservation work in 1913 and again in 1936. Between 1940 and 1945, the synagogue lost its roof, vaults, furniture, windows, and library collections, and its courtyard was used for Nazi executions. Rebuilding after the war ended in 1959, and the building opened as part of the city historical museum dedicated to Jewish history and culture, but it was more a Communist era showcase of exotica than an informative or educational institution. In May 1982, burglars ransacked the building and stole objects of ritual art. Since the fall of Communism in 1990, the museum has undergone many changes. The labeling of the substantial exhibition of synagogue furnishings and ritual art has improved. The museum hosts exhibitions and concerts in what was the main prayer hall. Even as other synagogues of Kazmeirz have been restored by the Jewish Community - and some returned to religious use - the Staary Synagogue remains a central tourist attraction for visitors in the Old Jewish Quarter.
Further Reading
Duda, Eugeniusz. A Guide to Jewish Cracow. Warsaw: Our Roots, 1990, esp. 36–38.
Krinsky, Carol Herselle. Synagogues of Europe. Boston: The Architectural History Foundation and the MIT Press, 1985.
Rejduch-Samkowa, Izabella, and Jana Samka, eds. Catalog of Art Monuments in Poland. Vol IV: The City of Cracow, Part IV, Kazimierz and Stradom, Judaica: Synagogues, Public Buildings and Cemeteries. Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Art, 1995, esp. 1–8 (text in Polish).
