Izaak Synagogue: Baroque Splendor of a Pious Merchant

Why is it significant?

Pause before the broad, double-flight stone staircase leading up to the portal of the Izaak Synagogue. Founded in 1644 by Izaak Jakubowicz, a wealthy merchant banker and elder of the Krakow Jewish community, this is the largest historic synagogue in the city.

Key Facts

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Pause before the broad, double-flight stone staircase leading up to the portal of the Izaak Synagogue. Founded in 1644 by Izaak Jakubowicz, a wealthy merchant banker and elder of the Krakow Jewish community, this is the largest historic synagogue in the city. Its high baroque barrel-vaulted ceiling, adorned with seventeenth-century floral stucco work, rises with the soaring grandeur of an Italian basilica. Yet the building's very existence was the result of a fierce, decade-long legal battle against the local Christian clergy.

The Krakow Catholic parish priest fiercely opposed the construction, complaining that a grand synagogue so close to Christian streets would insult the Church. Only after Jakubowicz secured direct royal intervention from King Władysław IV Vasa was the building permit finally honored. Even on the day of opening, a hostile mob gathered to disrupt the prayers, but the city guards kept the peace. Jakubowicz chose Italian architect Giovanni Trevano to design the hall, giving it thick masonry walls and defensive structural proportions.

A famous Hasidic folk tale, recorded by Martin Buber, explains how Izaak Jakubowicz amassed the fortune needed to build this sanctuary. According to the legend, Izaak dreamed three times that a great treasure was buried beneath a bridge in Prague. He walked on foot to Prague, only to find the bridge heavily guarded by imperial sentries; when he told the guard captain of his dream, the officer laughed: Foolish Jew! I too dreamed of a treasure buried under the kitchen stove of an Izaak in Krakow, but who would be stupid enough to travel for a dream? Izaak hurried back home, dug beneath his own kitchen stove, unearthed a chest of gold, and built this synagogue in gratitude to God.

During the Nazi occupation, the interior was pillaged, and historic furnishings, candelabra, and silver Torah crowns were stolen or melted down. Yet beneath peeling layers of wartime whitewash, conservators later uncovered seventeenth-century polychrome Hebrew liturgy inscriptions covering the walls. Today, the Izaak Synagogue hosts orthodox religious services and exhibitions of archival photographs documenting pre-war Galician Jewish life. Its towering barrel vault resonates with centuries of steadfast faith.

Walk east along Kupa Street and turn into Szeroka Street, the grand boulevard of Jewish memory. On your left stands the walled enclosure of the Remah Synagogue and its four-hundred-year-old cemetery.