Images of Polish Synagogues

During April 1995, I was fortunate enough to go on the annual Poland/Israel study trip of the Holocaust/Genocide Project (HGP) of the International Education and Resource Network (I*EARN), for which I volunteer.

This presentation is a commemoration of some of the synagogues we visited in Poland. The main Web page for each synagogue contains "thumbnails" (reduced images) of photographs taken of that synagogue. To view a full-sized version of a given image, please select the thumbnail (or its name).

In the future, this synagogue presentation will include additional images, synagogue floor plans, other maps, and more detailed information about the synagogues and their respective communities.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Cordially,

David M. Dickerson

Poyln: Land of Sages and Tsadikim
by Yehiel Yeshaia Trunk
From Poyln: Zikhroynes un bilder

Quoted in Polin -- Studies in Polish Jewry
Volume 8: Jews in Independent Poland 1918-1939
Edited by Antony Polonsky, Ezra Mendelsohn
and Jerzy Tomaszewski

. . . The multi-faceted Jewish life in Poland was tied together by the style of oneness, in the style of many-sided unity of the godhead, for what is style if not unity in diversity? And, in addition, the old idealistic, prophetic, and future-oriented spirit continued to burn in the souls of Polish Jews. It went hand in hand with a cultural this-worldly orientation, and the spirit bridged the different and opposite forms of the consciousness of Polish Jews. . . .

. . . In the last summer before the Second World War, under the black terrible skies, the hearts of Polish Jews were heavy with premonitions of doom. And still, they knew how to turn these forebodings into a feeling of confidence. They learnt through severe trials how to cope with hot and cold without ever giving up hope. Despair which turns into confidence is perhaps a part of the process of the drama of the oneness of the world, a play performed with so much feeling in the depths of the Jewish soul (Polin 8, 322).

Translation by Anna Clarke

Works Cited in This Presentation

• Bridger, David (Editor). The New Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Behrman House, Inc, 1976).
  
  
• Bystrowski, Cezary, et al. Tykocinskie Impresje (Suprasl - Tykocin, 1994).
  
  
• Die Nozyk Synagoge in Warschau (brochure in German).
  
  
• Encyclopaedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1971).
  
  
• Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1994).
  
  
• Huberband, Shimon. Kiddush Hashem: Jewish Religious and Cultural Life in Poland During the Holocaust (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1987).
  
  
• Kagan, Joram. Hippocrene Insider's Guide to Poland's Jewish Heritage (New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1992).
  
  
• Kaploun, Uri (Editor). The Synagogue (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973).
  
  
• Lewittes, Mendell. Jewish Law: An Introduction (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1994).
  
  
• Polonsky, Antony; Mendelsohn, Ezra; and, Tomaszewski, Jerzy (Editors). Studies in Polish Jewry -- Volume 8: Jews in Independent Poland 1918-1939 (Washington, DC: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1994).
  
  
• Zborowski, Mark; and Herzog, Elizabeth. Life is with People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: Schocken Books, 1962).