Inscription from the Establishment of the Rema Synagogue
The text on this inscription, dating from the establishment of the Rema Synagogue in Krákow, reads, in part: “The man, R. Israel ben Joseph (of blessed memory), gathered his strength, for the honor of the Holy One blessed be He and, in the memory of his wife Malka bat R. Eleazar (may her soul be bound in the bonds of life), built—from the assets of her estate—this place, the house of God.” 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, Poland). 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 indicates that it was built by his father, Israel, a wealthy banker, to commemorate his first wife, 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.
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Credits
Courtesy Gmina Wyznaniowa Żydowska w Krakowie.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
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