Bardejov Town Square

June 24 2008 Tuesday:

Noon: Kosher Lunch

Meet with the Rabbi & rabbinic students in Kosice.  Tour Synagogue.

Our Motor Coach departs for Bardejov with a stop in Presov & the Presov Jewish Museum.

Hotel Check in

Kosher Dinner

After dinner Program

June 25 2008 Wednesday :

Breakfast

Tour Bardejov town square,  Chevra Bikur Cholim Synagogue

Jewish Cemetery,& Chevra Mishnayot Synagogue. 

Kosher Lunch

Free time for visits to neighboring towns and villiages.

Old Synagogue (suburbium) complex tour and Kosher Dinner

After dinner Program

June 26 2008 Thursday :

Breakfast

Transportation on to Kracow, Poland or back to Kosice Airport or train station.

8:00 AM   Meet in Košice

Tour Košice:  Hlavná ulica  -the main square is quite scenic and contains dancing fountains and the country's largest gothic cathedral.

Jews moved into Kosice after the laws changed in 1841. The Jewish community lived together on and around Zvonarska street (Bell-founders'street) where they converted a granary into the first house synagogue. Prior to WWI, Kosice's Jewish population numbered 12,000.  The Jewish community today counts more than 500 members, the 2nd largest in Slovakia. 

The Jewish congregation built a school, a shelter for travelers, a shelter for the poor and a flat for a rabbi - teacher and an office for the synagogue.  The Jewish compound contains a an Orthodox synagogue renovated prayer hall, a mikvah, meetings rooms and kosher restaurant. There  are also a few 20th century synagogues, as well asa cemetery dating to 1844.

     Roughly the years after finishing the synagogue on Zvonarska street (Bell- founders' street), Jews wishing to adopt modern life preserving their faith, the so called neologists, built a double tower synagogue on Moyzesova street. They furnished it also with an organ causing agitation among the Orthodox Jews. Until they did not have their own trained organ player,Oldrich Hemerica, the choir-leader of the Cathedral of Kosice, a lover of the venerable Jewish music, played the organ there. This synagogue was demolished in the fifties. Now, there is a park in front of the House of Arts.

After the World War I, about 1920,built a synagogue on Tajovsky street. It was a super-orthodox sect in which most rabbis were Cadics-Saints or wise men. For instance, Rabbi Smuel Engel called upon by many worshippers from the whole European continent, was supposed to possess magical powers. At present there is the Institute of Technological Testing.

In the years 1926 -1927, orthodox worshippers built a new synagogue with 800 seats, with a school and a talmud-torah-school for rabbis. The design, by a Christian architect, is a mixture of Moorish fortress, traditional Jewish elements and Cubism.

It belongs again to the Jewish community, but is not used in the winter, due to lack of heat.

The bronze memorial plate on the front speaks of the more than twelve thousand Jews of Kosice were taken to concentration camps. It does not mention that more than two thousand Jews from surroundings of Kosice were concentrated here and then also taken to concentration camps.

Hrnciarska (Potters') street, is also known as the "Street of historical crafts". The traditional Kosice craft shops are clustered here, including a bakery, leather workshop, jeweler, furniture restoration, pottery, metal shop, iron forge, upholstery and an old fashioned coin mint

June 25

Bardejov the Old Synagogue Beit Midrash

prewar Chevra Bikur Cholim Synagogue

Jewish Cemetery

Chevra Mishnayot Synagogue

catered kosker lunch and dinner

free time to explore Bardejov or visit suronding towns with previous Jewish populations - Sabinov,

non-kosker breakfast at the hotel

June 26th 

return to budapest

Bardejov c/o Explore America Tours, 4924 Balboa Blvd #287, Encino, CA 91316 USA
Tel: (818)995-8729, FAX (818)788-4399

Copyright © 2007 Explore America Tours