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East along ul. Jozefa brings you out onto ul. Szeroka (Wide Street), a broad open space whose numerous synagogues constituted the focus of religious life in the ghetto. On the southern side of this truncated square stands the Stara Synagoga (Old Synagogue), the grandest of all the Kazimierz synagogues and the earliest surviving Jewish religious building in Poland. Modelled on the great European synagogues of Worms, Prague and Regensburg, the present Renaissance building was completed by Mateo Gucci in the 1570s, replacing an earlier brick building destroyed, like much of the surrounding area, by a fire in 1557. The synagogue's story is closely entwined with the country's history. It was here, for example, that Kosciuszko came to rally Krakow Jews in 1794 in support of armed resistance to the Partitions, a precedent followed by the Kazimierz rabbi Ber Meissels during the uprisings of 1831 and 1863. President Ignacy Moscicki made a symbolically important state visit to the synagogue in 1931, a move designed to demonstrate official amity with the country's Jewish population. Predictably, the Nazis did a thorough job of destroying the place. Following the war, the painstaking process of refashioning the building on the lines of Gucci's graceful original structure was initiated. The rebuilt synagogue was subsequently converted into a museum of the history and culture of Krakow Jewry (Wed & Thurs 9am-3.30pm, Fri 11am-6pm, Sat & Sun 9am-3pm; closed first Sat & Sun of the month when it opens Mon & Tues 9am-3.30pm instead). Nazi destruction was thorough, so the museum's collection of art, books, manuscripts and religious objects has a slightly cobbled-together feel to it, though there's an interesting and evocative set of photos of life in the ghetto before World War II. The wrought-iron bimah in the centre of the main prayer hall is original, the masterful product of a sixteenth-century Krakow workshop. In tandem with the general revival of interest in Jewish Krakow, the synagogue now plays host to an increasing number of temporary exhibitions relating to the history and culture of Polish Jewry, as well as providing one of the central locations for the annual summer Jewish Cultural Festival . On the east side of Szeroka, no. 22 formerly housed the Na Gorce Synagogue , associated with Rabbi Nathan Spira, a celebrated seventeenth-century cabbalist scholar, the tercentenary of whose death was the occasion for a major commemoration in Kazimierz in 1933. This and the surrounding houses were originally owned by the Jekeles family, one of the wealthiest merchant dynasties in Kazimierz and founders of the Isaac Synagogue. The synagogue has been converted into a smart bank, an encouraging sign of economic confidence in the development potential of the area. Set back from the square, behind a gated yard, at no. 16 is the former Synagoga Poppera (Popper or Stork's Synagogue), a typical brick structure raised in the 1620s by another wealthy local merchant family. These days it houses a youth cultural centre, open unpredictably, every trace of its original purpose having been erased by the Nazis. On the far northern corner of the square, stands the old community bathhouse and mikveh , now a cafe-restaurant. Straddling the intersection with ul. Miodowa at the top of the square, is an old merchant's house known as Palac Jordanow (Jordan's Palace). The building now houses the Jordan (Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 10am-4pm), a cultural centre-cum-bookshop established by an enterprising local resident, an exemplary model of sensitivity and commitment to reviving interest in Jewish Kazimierz. As well as a good range of publications relating to Jewish life in Krakow and Poland generally, and a pleasant, animated cafe, the centre offers guided walking tours (groups and individuals) round the area, the basic ghetto tour lasting 3 hours (25zl per person, minimum 3 people). The options include a "Schindler's List Tour", its popularity matched by what some will regard as the exploitive morality of such an enterprise. All the guides speak English and generally know their stuff pretty well, and you can take things as fast or as slowly as you like. You need to book at least a day in advance for all tours (tel 012/429 1374). Moving round the top of the square, the tiny Synagoga Remu (Remu'h Synagogue) at ul. Szeroka 40 (Mon-Fri & Sun 9am-4pm), is one of two still functioning in the quarter. Built in 1557 on the site of an earlier wooden synagogue, it was ransacked by the Nazis and restored after the war. It's named after Moses Isserles, also known as Rabbi Remu'h, an eminent Polish writer and philosopher and the son of the synagogue's founder. On Fridays and Saturdays, the small local congregation is regularly swelled by the increasing number of Jews visiting Poland these days. Behind the synagogue is the Remu'h cemetery , established twenty or so years earlier, and in use till the end of the eighteenth century, after which it was supplanted by the New Cemetery. Many of the gravestones were unearthed in the 1950s having been covered with a layer of earth in the interwar years - a saving grace, as the rest of the cemetery was smashed up by the Nazis during the occupation. One of the finest is that of Rabbi Remu'h, its stele luxuriously ornamented with plant motifs. Just inside the entrance, tombstones torn up by the Nazis have been collaged together to form a high, powerful Wailing Wall.
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