Krzysztof Myśliński (Museum of the History of Kielce) Private Jewish Houses of Prayer in Kielce The extermination of a large Jewish community in Kielce in the years 1939 – 1943 led to almost total destruction of local written and material sources. The Kielce Jewish community, comprising mostly Orthodox Jews and Hasids, used, apart from a large community synagogue, several dozen local houses of prayer of different sizes. Before 1939, there were at least 34 private houses of prayer entered into registers of the Jewish community, and probably 20 more operating without administrative permissions. The article is an attempt to describe their environmental status, organization, relations with administration and police authorities as well as material conditions, including type, size, and technical-sanitary state of buildings housing private houses of prayer. The analysis was conducted on the basis of rare administration sources available at the State Archive in Kielce drawn up due to a large Jewish community and religious community operating in Kielce since 1860. On the basis of the information included in the sources it might be concluded that general rules of operation of the private houses of prayer in Kielce, as well as the character of building that they occupied, were similar to those in other cities of Central Poland inhabited by large and diversified Jewish communities. The article also includes a list of private houses of prayer made by the Jewish Religious Community in Kielce in 1926 on the instructions of district authorities.