The Jewish Community of Kraków

Jews were probably living in Kraków as early as the eleventh century, although the first record of a Jewish resident dates only from the thirteenth century. An organized community emerged in the following century, during which there was a Jewish street, a synagogue, and a mikveh in the city. The Jews of Kraków encountered substantial hostility, culminating in their expulsion to neighboring Kazimierz in 1495. The first yeshiva in Poland was established in Kazimierz in the late fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, immigrants arrived from Germany, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, and by the 1570s the town’s Jewish population numbered more than two thousand. During the ensuing centuries Jews living in Kazimierz battled for the right to conduct business in Kraków. The community flourished, boasting seven major synagogues and numerous yeshivot by the mid-seventeenth century. However, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the community suffered as a result of the Swedish occupation, numerous attacks, and outbreaks of the plague.