Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Polish Synagogue Rededicated as Museum

A former synagogue in the Polish city of Plock was rededicated as a museum of Jewish culture and heritage.

The Museum of Masovian Jews, set to open March 15, explores the 700-year heritage of Jews in Plock and the surrounding region. It contains multimedia displays and exhibits relating to Jewish religious ceremonies, customs, cuisine and music. A separate exhibition is devoted to the Holocaust.

The museum was born of the initiative of the Plock Synagogue Association, Polskie Radio reported on Thursday. The association raised about $400,000 and the European Union provided the remaining funding for the $2.8 million project, according to the museum’s website.

Prior to the war, about one-third of Plock’s inhabitants were Jewish, according to the radio station. The vast majority of the town’s 9,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Some of the survivors emigrated after the war, and those who remained left in 1968, after Poland’s communist government launched an anti-Zionist campaign.

Feliks Tuszynski, a 91-year-old Jewish artist who grew up in Plock but is now based in Australia, has donated 40 paintings to the museum.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.