Until 1840 Jews from the nearby village of Rozhanovce (Hung. Rozgony) attended the market in Kosice. But in 1840, they received permission to settle there. The statutes of the community (the Kehila), then comprising 32 families, were approved in 1843. The prayer room opened in that year was still in existence in 1970. The community began to prosper in 1860 when Kosice became a railway junction. Many of the town's industries - for example, a brewery, flour mills, a soap factory and large brickworks - were founded by Jews.

By 1869 there were 2,178 Jews (10% of the total population) in Kosice and by 1910, 6,723 (15%). The construction of a synagogue in the reform style split the Neolog and Orthodox communities in 1866.

Kosice absorbed many World War I refugees who remained there even after the war.

Both communities supported elementary schools where Hungarian was the language of instruction. The Kosice Yeshiva was among those recognized by the government as an institution of higher learning. When a new Neolog synagogue was built in 1927, the Status Quo Ante community (which increased from 236 members in 1914 to 700 in 1927) took over the old synagogue, adapting it and demolishing the towers. The Chasidim also built their own synagogue.

Rabbi Dr Ernest (Ephraim Yehudah) Wiesenberg (see modified tribute from Cambridge University), rabbi and scholar, was born in Kosice in 1909 and died in London on 21 January 2000.

In 1930, 11,195 Jews lived in Kosice.

    The Holocaust Period

Before World War II (September 1939), immediately after Hungary annexed the town (November 1938), anti-Semitic economic restrictions were applied; initially, against those holding government licenses (e.g., tobacconists, restauranteurs, and lawyers). After the war broke out refugees from Slovakia and Poland went to Kosice, and in 1940, 3,000 persons were supported by the Hungarian Jewish relief organization OMZSA.

From 1940, all Jewish men aged between 40 and 45 were conscripted for forced labor and those between 21 and 40 for the Hungarian army labor-battalions serving in Russia. Kosice absorbed another wave of refugees when the Slovakian deportations began (1942). With the German army's setbacks the Jewish position in Kosice improved, but when Hungary was occupied by the Germans in March 19, 1944, hostages were taken, a Judenrat formed, and large sums of money extorted from the community. Until April 28, 11,830 Jews had been confined to 11 streets, but these were reduced to three on April 30. Finally they were ordered to move into the four-acre area of the local brickworks.

From May 15, deportations to the Nazi extermination camps began. Some Gentiles who had given help to Jews were deported with them. By June 7, Kosice was Judenrein.