Built at the site of a wooden building in 1610 the Synagogue was the centre of a former Jewish quarter. Adjacent to the main hall, where, pursuant to Jewish tradition only men prayed, there are two smaller women’s halls. During the Second World War the Nazis vandalised the Synagogue which then housed stables. After the war the southern women’s hall was reconstructed. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s thorough conservation work was carried out in the building and its parapet was reconstructed. Inside the synagogue a stone Aron ha Kodesh, an altar, where liturgical books were stored, has been preserved. Another preserved element is the polychrome stuccoes on the ceiling and the main wall of the northern women’s hall. The stucco frames were once filled with quotations from the Bible.
West of the Synagogue there is a house which used to be the seat of kahał, i.e. a Jewish commune. Mykwa, a ritual Jewish bath was once situated in the basement of the tenement house at 5 Zamenhofa Street, a few meters from the Synagogue.
At present the Synagogue houses a multimedia Museum of the History of Jews from Zamość and the Vicinity, a centre which provides information about “The Hasidic Trail” and a bookshop, whereas in it main hall concerts and exhibitions are held.
