Židovské kasíno v Košiciach

In 1893, the Jewish community of Košice founded the so-called Košice Social Circle – a casino as well as a social, educational, and cultural club. Its first seat, from 1895, was located directly on Hlavná Street, where Jews also operated a café at the time.

In 1910, however, they built a new palace on Roosevelt Street near the then most prestigious Košice hotel, Schalkház. This beautiful Art Nouveau building, designed by architect Koloman Beck, became the Jewish Casino. The grand palace offered a wide range of uses for the entire community, serving as a place for business meetings, cultural events, celebrations, concerts, and lectures.

The casino included a banquet hall, café, reading room, kitchen, and even accommodation facilities. What once was a vibrant center of Jewish social life later became, after the war in 1962, the home of a puppet theatre for nearly 30 years. The building was returned to the Jewish religious community only in 1995 after restitution, but the community decided to sell it in order to finance the restoration of the oldest surviving synagogue in Košice. Today, the palace is privately owned and is not used for any public purpose.