Doors to the Bimah, Rema Synagogue (Krakow)

The Rema Synagogue, named after the famous rabbi and scholar Moses Isserles (known by the Hebrew acronym “Rema”), was built in 1553 in the city of Kazimierz (today a district of Kraków). It was originally referred to as the New Synagogue to distinguish it from the city’s Old Synagogue. Although some traditions ascribe its construction to Isserles himself, the dedication in the synagogue indicates that it was built by his father, Israel, a wealthy banker, to commemorate his first wife, Golda, who died in an epidemic that had ravaged the city. The synagogue, probably a wooden structure, was destroyed by a fire only four years later and was subsequently rebuilt as a Renaissance-style masonry building by permission of the king, Sigismund II Augustus. The doors to its Torah ark are decorated on the inside with images of two ritual objects from the Temple in Jerusalem: a menorah and the table for the offerings of loaves and cakes.