The Cytron Beit Midrash Synagogue takes its name from its founders. The Cytrons were a wealthy family of industrialists. They owned textile factories in Suprasl and Bialystok. They lived, among other places, in an Art Nouveau palace on Warszawska Street, which now houses the Historical Museum.
Thanks to the generosity of the Cytron family, a modernist synagogue with a very rich interior was set up. The synagogue was famous for its elaborate design elements, especially the coffered ceiling of the main hall, which was made of various types of exotic wood. The walls were covered with polychrome paintings. The opening of the synagogue took place in 1936 and was the occasion of a great celebration. Representatives of the city and provincial authorities and the military garrison were invited. Cantors and a choir performed. Such a celebration was never repeated in the capital of Podlasie. The Cytron Beit Midrash was the last synagogue built in Bialystok.
When the Germans entered the city in 1941 and established a ghetto, the Cytronon Synagogue was within its boundaries. In spite of being under Nazi ban, it continued to operate in secret from the occupiers.
The building survived the Second World War and continued to serve the Jewish community. Between 1945 and 1968 it was the main synagogue of Bialystok. After the events of March 1968, a significant number of Jewish residents left the city and the religious life of the community ceased. The synagogue building became the seat of several institutions, including the Studio of Visual Arts. Numerous renovations and alterations were carried out, resulting in the loss of the original interior layout and the destruction of the remains of the rich furnishings. Today, the former synagogue building is the seat of the Jewish Art and Culture Department of the Sleńdziński Gallery and dedicated to the history and heritage of the Jews of Bialystok.

The Samuel Mohilewer Synagogue was considered the most beautiful private synagogue in Bialystok before the war. It was built at the turn of the 20th century (between 1899 and 1901). Originally it was richly decorated in the historicist style and had a meticulously designed interior. Entrances to the prayer room led from two side staircases. The main room of the synagogue was surrounded on three sides by a women's gallery. In the centre was the octagonal bimah - the raised platform with a lectern for reading the Torah - the focal point of every synagogue. The façade of the building was particularly impressive, decorated with pointed windows, portals and other neo-Gothic elements of architectural decoration.
The magnificent main façade and the interior layout have not survived. Destroyed during the Second World War, the building was rebuilt in a very simplified form. However, the building's past can be deciphered by looking into the courtyard. The characteristic elements of the rear façade have been preserved: high, semicircular, closed windows and a triangular apse that originally formed a niche in the interior. It housed the Aron ha-Kodesh or 'Sacred Chest'. This is an altar cabinet used for storing Torah scrolls. This is one of the most important pieces of equipment in any synagogue. It is always on the wall facing Jerusalem.
The synagogue was named Beit Shmuel in honour of Samuel Mohilewer, who had died four years earlier. He was a widely respected rabbi in Bialystok. He was very active in the capital of Podlasie, but he is best remembered as a key figure in the Zionist movement of the 19th century. He promoted the idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine and encouraged mutual tolerance and unity among the Jewish people. He was buried in the East Street cemetery and his grave soon became a pilgrimage site. In the 1990s, the family moved Rabbi Mohilewer's remains to Israel.

The Piaskower Beth Midrash was built between 1890 and 1893 on the site of a wooden synagogue dating from the 1820s. Its name comes from the Piaski district, which stretches to the south-west of the city. Piaski and nearby Chanajki did not have a good reputation. Both districts were inhabited mainly by the poorer Jewish community.
The synagogue was built with private funds. The money was raised, among other things, from the sale of prestigious seats in the synagogue before construction began. In Jewish houses of prayer, all seats had their rightful owners. They could be bought, inherited or donated. The best and most honourable seats were near the bimah and the Aron ha-kodesh.
The Piaskower Synagogue was one of the largest in the city and was renowned for its modernity. It was soon connected to the sewerage system and had electric lighting - the interior was lit by 73 lamps. The ceilings were supported by cast-iron pillars. The main prayer hall was in the eastern part of the building. On the west side, at the level of the second floor, there was a women's gallery. It had a separate entrance. Women did not take an active part in the services. The seats reserved for them were usually in the galleries above the main hall or in the annexes. The building also housed a Talmud Torah religious school.
Of the dozens of synagogues and houses of prayer that existed in Bialystok before 1939, only three buildings survived the Second World War: the Cytron Synagogue, the largely destroyed Samuel Mohilewer Synagogue and the devastated Piaskower Synagogue. At the end of the 1940s, the building was used as an oil mill. Later it was used by a number of institutions: a puppet theatre, a cinema and a cultural centre. Until 1970, the building housed the Jewish Social and Cultural Association. Remains of the synagogue's original furnishings were destroyed by fire and the building was rebuilt in the 1990s. Today the building is the seat of the Bialystok Esperanto Society.

The Great Synagogue Monument is now the only trace of the existence of the Shulhof, the oldest Jewish quarter in Bialystok. Its shape refers to the burnt-out structure of the dome crowning the building. On 27 June 1941, German troops entered the city. The massacres of the Jewish population began on the streets of Bialystok. In total, more than 2,000 people were killed. About 800 were burned alive in the Great Synagogue building. The Germans herded mainly men into it and then set fire to the building. Most of the district burned down along with it. The day went down in the city's history as ‘black Friday’.
The Great Synagogue was the most important place for the Jews of Bialystok. Its construction started in 1909. Before the First World War, the building was only a shell. The work was probably never finished. The building was an important investment for the Jewish community because of its impressive size. The architect of the building was Samuel Rabinowicz, father of the famous painter Bencjon Rabinowicz. The plans of the building are unknown. Researchers are trying to reconstruct its appearance from photographs and descriptions. The most striking architectural feature of the Great Synagogue was the imposing iron-framed dome, supported by iron columns, which covered the prayer hall. The decoration was in an oriental style, commonly referred to as Moorish. This emphasised the cultural difference and Middle Eastern roots of the Jewish population.
The Great Synagogue was built on the site of a former 18th-century synagogue on a kahal square in the Shulhof district. This was the first district of Bialystok to be settled by Jews. It was also the site of the chronologically first synagogue, built under the privilege of Stefan Mikołaj Branicki. In 1692, the owner of Bialystok guaranteed the Jewish community the right to own a temple and a cemetery.

The cemetery was established in the middle of the 18th century just outside the city gate on the road to Suraz. It was the second Jewish necropolis in the city. The first was located behind the southern façade of the market square. It had existed since the end of the 17th century, when Stefan Mikołaj Branicki, the owner of Białystok, issued a privilege for Jews (1692). Today there is no trace of it.
The Rabbinical Cemetery became the main necropolis of the Jewish inhabitants of Bialystok. The most prominent and wealthy members of the community were buried here. A "row of rabbis' graves" stretched across the cemetery. Many of the gravestones were impressive and richly decorated. The cemetery was in use until the 1890s. After that burials were sporadic.
In 1941 the necropolis was destroyed by the Germans. The occupiers used the matzevot as building material and brought rubble from the burnt-down Jewish quarter of Szulhof to the cemetery. Further devastation followed after the war. The gravestones were used as material for the reconstruction of the town. The area of the cemetery was cleaned and the last traces of its character were filled in. The Central Park and the Bialystok Puppet Theatre were built on the grounds of the necropolis. Today, information plaques remind us of the place's past.

It was established in 1890 on the northern outskirts of the city called Bagnówka. It was founded on the initiative of Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer. It was the biggest Jewish necropolis in Bialystok. Before the war it covered more than 12.5 hectares, today it is about 10 hectares.
A large part of the cemetery was destroyed. About 6,000 matzevot, or traditional Jewish gravestones, have survived to this day. Matzevot have the shape of a rectangular gravestone closed by a semicircle or triangle. Symbolic bas-reliefs were placed on the top, such as lions, a candlestick, a book, a pitcher or hands folded in prayer. The vast majority of gravestones were covered with polychrome. In Poland sandstone was mainly used for gravestones. In the Eastern Cemetery there are also gravestones made of marble, granite, limestone and concrete. The inscriptions are mainly in Hebrew, but there are also inscriptions in Yiddish, German, Russian and Polish. The matzevot are gradually being restored.
People of special merit, such as rabbis and tzaddikim, were buried in burial chapels called ohels. The Ohel of Chaim Herz Halpern, the longest-serving rabbi of Bialystok, who died in 1919, is preserved in the centre of the cemetery. There is a granite monument in the cemetery commemorating the 89 victims of the Bialystok pogrom of 1906. The victims were buried in a mass grave. Their names are engraved on the gravestone, together with an epitaph written by the famous poet Zelman Sznejur.
The cemetery was used for half a century. It is estimated that about 500 people were buried there every year until the outbreak of the war. The last burial took place in 1969.

The two-storey brick tenement building with a richly decorated facade was built in 1903. It was designed by the famous architect Samuel Rabinowicz, who later designed the Great Synagogue. The building was built for the Linas Chajlim, a Jewish charity organisation. Its purpose was to provide charitable medical care, in accordance with the commandments of Judaism. Helping fellow Jews in need was one of the most important duties of every religious Jew. Charity work was carried out through the establishment of social organisations. In Bialystok, for example, there was the Society for the Protection of Health, the Society for the Support of Orphans and Homeless Children, and the prosperous Linas Hacedek Jewish Charity Society, which in 1935 opened an ambulance service with the first ambulanse in the city.
Linas Chajlim was established in 1897. From 1920 it operated its own medical clinic, which was one of the most modern health facilities in Bialystok. Patients could use the services of dentists, ophthalmologists, laryngologists and specialists in internal medicine, as well as electrotherapy and hydrotherapy. The Society was one of the most important institutions looking after the health of the city's inhabitants.

The coeducational Hebrew Gymnasium operated from 1919 to 1939 and was one of the most prestigious schools in the city. The fame of the gymnasium extended beyond Bialystok. It was one of the most important Jewish schools in Poland. Classes were held entirely in Hebrew, which contributed to the revival of the language. Two years before the outbreak of the Second World War, the school was expanded - a grammar school was opened, specialising in the humanities and natural sciences.
Many prominent figures were associated with the Gymnasium, both among the staff and among the alumni. One of the teachers was Szymon Datner, a prominent historian and Holocaust researcher. His book 'The Struggle and Extermination of the Bialystok Ghetto' was one of the most important testimonies about the fate of the Jewish population in occupied Bialystok. In the school he taught physical education, history and singing.
Many graduates of the Hebrew Gymnasium went to Palestine and in time formed the elite of the State of Israel. Among them was the politician Chajka Grossman, a member of the Knesset. In Bialystok she is remembered as a legendary ghetto liaison officer and participant in the uprising. An even more famous alumnus was Yitzhak Shamir, twice Prime Minister of Israel, considered one of its 'founding fathers'.
The Hebrew Gymnasium building was probably built in 1928. It was modern for the time (it had central heating) and perfectly adapted to the needs of the school. It had 24 classrooms. There was a sports field and a large garden for botany classes. The school had laboratories for individual subjects and practical classes. The building burnt down during the Second World War and was rebuilt to house the Municipal Hospital, which is still in operation today.

The modern, four-storey building was built specifically for the needs of the Dawid Druskin Gymnasium, probably at the end of the 1920s. However, the institution's traditions go back much further - it was founded in 1911, initially as a four-grade boys' school. In the inter-war period, the profile of the school was expanded to include a grammar school and, in time, the David Druskin High School. The school was co-educational and was renowned for its high standard of teaching. The institution operated until 1939.
The most famous graduate of the Druskin Gymnasium was Sonia Nejman, known as Nora Ney. In the 1920s she escaped (literally - through the window of her family's house) to Warsaw, dreaming of an acting career. She soon fulfilled her dreams and became a star of Polish cinema. By the outbreak of war, she had starred in twelve films. The whole country admired her acting and her oriental beauty. Nora was called the 'Polish Greta Garbo'. In the 1930s, she was voted 'Queen of the Screen' in the prestigious 'Cinema' magazine poll.
Today, the most famous mural in Bialystok, 'Girl with a Watering Can', is on the building of the former gymnasium.