The Jewish community appeared in Kovel after King Zygmunt Stary granted town rights to the locality in 1518. In 1536, Queen Bona, while confirming the privilege, obliged Kovel Jews to participate in the renovation of the town’s walls and bridges. In 1547, the queen established a fixed tax, called podworne (manor tax), payable for each Jewish-owned house (apart from the house of the rabbi); she also granted Jews rights and duties equal to the Christian population. The extensive commercial connections of the local community, reaching as far as the Tatar fortress of Ochakiv on the coast of the Black Sea, were the source of significant profit for the monarch.

In 1556, in response to the demands of the local population, separate streets were designated for Jews, who were forced to buy Christian houses located in the area. In 1565, King Zygmunt II August granted the ownership of Kovel to Knyaz Andrey Kurbsky from Moscow, who began to extort money from Jews. In 1569, his deputy sealed the synagogue and all Jewish houses and shops in the town, and then threw three Jews into a prison pit; such lawless deeds were later abrogated by a royal decree.

In 1614, Jews were granted the right to settle and own houses in all parts of Kovel. In 1618, Jewish tailors and furriers joined Christian craft guilds. During the Khmelnystky Uprising, the Cossacks and some Orthodox inhabitants of Kovel drowned Jews and Catholics in the local river.

In 1650, the Jewish community was revived on the basis of old privileges confirmed by King Jan Kazimierz. In 1651, there were 20 Jewish houses in Kovel, and in 1660 a synagogue was built (it burned down in 1744). In the 16^th and the 17^th century, the most famous rabbis of Kovel and heads of the local yeshiva were Szymszon and Icchak ben Natan Szapiro, as well as Jehuda, descendant of Jehuda Liwa ben Becalel.

The Jewish population of Kovel grew in the 18^th century. In 1765, there were 827 Jewish tax payers in the town. When Tzaddik Mordechaj of Niesuchojeże (1752-1800) settled in Kovel, the town became a centre of Hasidism.

After 1795, the Russian authorities chose a deputy mayor from among the Jews. A fire which broke out in the town in 1857 destroyed almost all buildings (including the synagogue), but Kovel was soon rebuilt. In the 1870s, the town underwent a period of intense development connected with the construction of railway lines.

In 1897, Kovel had 8,521 Jewish inhabitants (48% of the total population). Before 1914, there were several synagogues in the town, including the Great Synagogue (built between 1886-1907), eight Hasidic prayer houses of various affiliations, branches of charitable institutions, religious and secular schools, a funeral society (founded as early as the 16^th century), and a cemetery (with tombstones dating back to 1550).

In 1921, ca. 13,000 Jews lived in Kovel (61.2% of the population). They worked mainly in the light industry, in breweries and leather plants, in construction, or in craft workshops. They dealt in wholesale and retail trade. Half of the members of the town council were Jews.

The 20^th century saw intense development of the Jewish political life. The Hovevei Zion group was established in 1894. In 1904, the Bund launched an extensive propaganda campaign and became involved in organisational activities. The Zionist movement started to gain momentum in the years 1919-1939. Most of the Orthodox Jews living in Kovel belonged to the Agudath party.

The Tarbut organisation greatly contributed to the promotion of national awareness among Jews. In the interwar period, it ran a kindergarten, two primary schools, and a lower secondary school (est. 1921). In 1923, the ORT organisation (the Society for the Promotion of Vocational and Agricultural Work among Jews) opened a vocational school in Kovel. The cultural life of the Jewish community developed thanks to three public libraries, a drama club, and the I.L. Perec Club. Two Yiddish weeklies were published in the town: the Kovler shtime (1927-1939) and the Unzer leben (1936-1939). Various sports clubs were active in the town, among them the Maccabi, Bar-Kochba, and Kadima.

In 1939, ca. 17,000 Jews lived in Kovel (about 50% of the total population). The Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, which started in September 1939, brought an end to all aspects of organised Jewish social life. Hebrew ceased to be the language of instruction in all Jewish schools and kindergartens, and was replaced by Yiddish.

On 28 June 1941, Kovel was seized by Germans. Only a small part of the Jewish population managed to leave the town. Ca. 1,000 Jews were murdered in the first days of the occupation. The group, composed primarily of men who had ties to the communist apparatus (or at least were accused of having them), was shot in the Czerewacha forest. A twelve-member Judenrat was organised in the town on the German order.

On 21 May 1942, two ghettos were set up in Kovel. One of them, the so-called Piaski (Sands), was a ghetto for the able-bodied and members of their families. It housed ca. 8,000 people. The other one was created in the suburbs, at Brzeska Street, and housed 6,000 Jews classified as ‘parasites and invalids.’ On 2-3 July 1942, prisoners from the latter were driven outside the town and murdered in the village of Bachov. On 19 August 1942, Germans began to liquidate the ghetto for the able-bodied. Some Jews tried to escape into the forest, but most were killed by gangs of Ukrainian nationalists. As early as May 1942, a resistance group had been organised in the ghetto with the help of two representatives of the Jewish underground from Warsaw. During the liquidation of the district, its inhabitants attempted to mount armed resistance, but they were quickly suppressed by Germans. The last prisoners of the Kovel Ghetto were murdered in Bachov on 6 October 1942.

The Jewish community of Kovel did not completely disappear after the war. Ca. 250 Jews (50 families) inhabited the town in 1970, but all of them left over the following years. Not a single Jew was listed in the census of Kovel carried out in 2001.