Zamość Synagogue
Zamość Synagogue () is a UNESCO-protected Renaissance synagogue built between 1610 and 1618 in Zamość, southeastern Poland. Erected during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it functioned as a place of worship for Polish Jews until World War II, when the Nazis turned the interior into a carpenters' workshop. The structure was spared from destruction and in 1992 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Old City of Zamość. History The first Jews settled in Zamość in 1588, eight years after the founding of the town by Chancellor Jan Zamoyski. They were Sephardim coming from the Ottoman Empire and Venice and consequently established the northernmost Sephardi community in Central and Eastern Europe. It was the Sephardim that built the first synagogue in Zamość in the 1590s as a wooden structure. In 1610, after restrictions prohibiting Jews from building synagogues from stone were rescinded, the current brick building was erected, taking eight years to complete. The original Sephardi community ceased to exist in the 1620s when it assimilated into the fledgling Ashkenazi community, following an economic crisis caused by the accumulation of bad debts by Polish debtors. Ashkenazi Jews had begun settling in Zamość at the beginning of the