We are located in a former house of prayer (Beit ha-midrash) built in the 1880s by the B'nei Emuna Prayer and Benevolent Society and designed by the Cracow architect and builder Jacek Matusiński.

The building served religious functions up to the outbreak of World War II. During the war and for many years afterwards, the building was used as a carpentry workshop and then as a warehouse, and from the early 1980s it stood as an abandoned ruin. Its thoroughgoing renovation and modernization carried out in 1989-1993 was made possible by financial aid from the Congress of the United States of America, provided through the Polish-American Joint Commission for Humanitarian Assistance in Warsaw, and also from the Municipality of Cracow, the Governor of Cracow Province, the Citizens' Committee for Restoration of Cracow's Monuments, and the General Conservator of Poland.

Our day-to-day activity since 1993 has been made possible mainly by the generous support of institutions and individuals in Poland and abroad. We warmly thank all of them, and hope we can continue to count on this very necessary support.

We wish to express special thanks to:

The Polish-American Joint Commission for Humanitarian Assistance in Warsaw
The Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw
The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation in Warsaw
The Hanadiv Charitable Foundation
The Ford Foundation
The Aleksander Hertz Foundation
Marcel & Maria Roth Fund Inc.
American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies
American Society for Jewish Heritage in Poland
The Robert Bosch Foundation
The Cracow Mayor's Office
The Citizens' Committee for Restoration of Cracow's Monuments

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