T H E N E T W O R K O F S PA N I S H J E W I S H S I T E S

S epharad

THE ROUTES OF

TEXTO

DISEO

FOTOGRAFAS

PUBLICADO

FOTOMECNICA

IMPRESO

Carlos Aganzo

Luis Gmez

Archivo Fotogrfico Turespaa

Turespaa

Megacolor, S.A.

Egraf, S.A.

Cover: Jewish Quarter. Hervs - Synagogue. Toledo Jewish Quarter. Cordova

THE N E TW O RK O F S PAN I SH J EWI S H S I T ES

A B C A G H J L O P A S T A T
CORDOV R I B A D AV I TORTOS

V I L A the Jerusalem of Castile

,

4 6 8

A R C E L O N A , a Community of Wise Men CERES, a Medieval Flavour

the Cradle of Knowledge 1 0

IRONA, the Key to Sepharad 1 2

E RV S , and the Legend of the Errant Jewess 1 4

A E N , and the Golden Age of Spanish Jews 1 6 E N and the Castrum Iudeorum 1 8 V I E D O and the Omes Bonos 2 0

ALMA DE MALLORCA and the Legacy of the Majorcan Jews 2 2 Prosperity Based on Wine 2 4

EGOVIA a Town of Peaceful Coexistence 2 6

OLEDO, the Great Western Jewry 2 8 and the Disputation of the Polemists 3 0

U D E L A , the City of Travellers 3 2

J E W R I E S

A S S O C I A T E D

B C E M P T

E S A L , the Jews of the Counts Town 3 4

A L A H O R R A , L a R i o j a s M a i n A l j a m a 3 4 S T E L L A , and the Aljama of Elgacena 3 5

ONFORTE DE LEMOS, and the Rabudos 3 5 L A S E N C I A , and the Jews of La Mota 3 6 ARAZONA, and the Jewish Streets 3 6

S epharad

View of Gironas old quarter

Ribadavia. Orense

Palma de Mallorca

he Middle Ages in Spain were marked by the convulsions of secular war between the Muslims, who turned al-Andalus into their promised land and the splendid heart of their culture, and the Christian kingdoms, who never tired in their mission to recover, inch by inch, the territory they had lost due to the weakness and internal divisions of the Visigoths. In this world of warriors and religious confrontation, the Hebrew community, who had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula at a much earlier date, not only managed to survive, but acted as an important hinge between these eternal rivals, and greatly contributed to forging the melting pot that was to become the Spain of the three cultures. In the towns and cities of Sepharad, Spanish Jews had both a presence and their own place. They worked as craftsmen or tradesmen, and as financiers or advisors to Christians and Muslims alike. But they also developed their own science and literature, their own religious studies and their own culture, based on ancient traditions. And they stayed in Spain as long as they were able, until the Catholic Monarchs Edict of 1492 forced them to abandon the land of their forefathers. Many left on a new diaspora, but many others remained, obliged to convert to Christianity and becoming an essential part of the genetic map of the Spanish people.

Toledo at night

Jan

 vila

Oviedo

The Network of Spanish Jewish Sites was created in 1995 and is currently made up of 15 member cities (Avila, Barcelona, Caceres, Cordova, Girona, Hervas, Jaen, Leon, Oviedo, Palma de Mallorca, Ribadavia, Segovia, Toledo, Tortosa and Tudela) along with six other associate members (Besal, Calahorra, Estella-Lizarra, Monforte de Lemos, Plasencia and Tarazona). Its main purpose is to protect and highlight urban, architectural, historical and cultural Sephardic heritage, reclaiming it as an undeniable part of Spanish cultural identity, and developing its potential as a tourist attraction. It is a fascinating historic and cultural itinerary, that helps people to learn about, and better understand, the deep-rooted origins of Spain: a land of Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Sol Gateway

Len Ribadavia
Monforte de Lemos

Segovia Oviedo
Calahorra Estella Besal

Tudela

vila Hervs
Plasencia

Girona Barcelona Tortosa Palma Crdoba Toledo Jan

Tortosa
Tarazona

Cceres

A
Avila is a World Heritage Site, and has been
keen to include the Sephardic legacy in its standard tourist and cultural itineraries, such as the Route of the Mystics, the Romanesque Church Route, its 16th-century palaces, or its impressive medieval city walls.

VILA,

Decree of expulsion

The earliest documentary evidence of the

Old Synagogue

Hebrew presence in Avila dates from 1144, when Alfonso VII bestowed a tenth of the annual income of the Jews on the Cathedral. However, Jews were present in Avila when it was founded as a Christian city in Roman times. According to legend, it was a Jew who built the first Basilica to the martyred saints, Vincent, Sabina and Cristeta, who were tortured and executed during the 4th century persecutions.

The Jews of Avila were craftsmen in many

different trades, but they were also wealthy cloth merchants. Amongst other things, this prosperity enabled the scholar Mosh de Len, who lived in the house of Yuaf de Avila, the kings tax collector, to finish his Sefer ha-Zohar or Book of Splendour in the 13th century. This book is the last of the great Jewish Cabbalistic mystic trilogy, along with the Talmud and the Bible. Avila was also where Nissim ben Abraham, better known as the Prophet of Avila, wrote his book The Wonder of Wisdom, and where Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, who were both descended from conversos, or apostate Jews from old Jewish families, reached the greatest heights of Christian mysticism.

In his Historia de las grandezas de la ciudad

de vila, (A History of the Great Events of the City of Avila), Father Ariz tells how, after the city was taken from the Muslims by the Castilian king, Alfonso VI, the first Jewish contingent arrived in around 1085, to join in the adventure of repopulating the city, under the auspices of the kings son-in-law, Count Raymond of Bourgogne. Thus, the name of Rabbi Centn became part of the earliest chronicles of the re-foundation of Avila, after several centuries of neglect, during which it had been considered a no-mans-land and the frontier between Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

Museum of Mysticism

Mosh de Len Garden. Jewish quarter in vila

THE JERUSALEM OF CASTILE

Tomb of the Martyr Saints

The Four Posts

Having settled in different parts of the city

at various times throughout history, the Sephardic Jews of Avila had their main Jewish quarter in the south east of the walled city, in what is now the Santo Domingo neighbourhood, between the Adaja, Malaventura and Montenegro Gateways, and starting at the Mercado Chico, or Small Market, where the Roman forum once stood. The discovery of the old Jewish tanneries beside the river Adaja has revealed the best tangible proof of their industrial activities, in a town where such evidence has mostly been provided by documents, including the original Decree of Expulsion of 1492, which belongs to the municipal archives.

The streets and alleyways of the Jewish

quarter, the remains of the synagogue of Don Simuel in Calle Pocillo, or the Rabbis house which is how the Belforad hostal, the impressive Santo Toms monastery that was once the Inquisition headquarters, or the basilica of San Vicente, which recall the tale of the martyrs and the Jews these are all highlights of a Hebrew Route that ends with the chronicle of the exodus of all those who left the city through the Malaventura gateway. Next to this gateway, in the garden that bears his name, the words of Moshe de Leon are an eternal reference for this spiritual city: There are moments in which the souls in the garden rise up and reach the door of heaven. Then the sky itself revolves thrice around the garden, to the sound of a harmonious tune.

Los D vila Palace

B
To mention the famous Gothic Quarter is Although the documents only bear witness
to talk of the old Jewry, or Call in Catalan, where in the Middle Ages, four thousand people once lived.
Gothic district

ARCELONA:
As well as the Greater Synagogue, in Carrer
Sant Domnech del Call there stood another of the Jewish community s important buildings: the butchers, where kosher meat was sold, duly purified for family consumption. Documents of the time name David of Bellcaire as the owner of the butchers shop, and state that the fishmongers stood in what is now Carrer de la Fruita. In 1357, the Call water fountain was built, in the middle of Carrer Sant Honorat, so that Jews did not have to leave the Jewish quarter to fetch water. Carrer Banys Nouse, or New Baths Street, is a reminder of the new baths. The Banys Nous were founded in 1160 by the alfaqui Abraham Bonastruc, associated to Count Romaon Berenguer. The count donated some land just outside the Roman walls, under the Castell Nou, where there was plenty of water, and Bonastruc had them built and equipped. According to the contract, the alfaqui would run the business, and both men would each take a third of the profits. Inside was a room for the mikve. A stone plaque in Carrer Marlet, which is a replica of the one in the Museum of City History, bears witness to the foundation of a hospital, under the auspices of Samuel ha-Sard, in the 13th century. In the 15th century, another four synagogues are reported, besides the Greater Synagogue. They were all part of a tight-knit society in which Rabbis and scholars, such as mathematicians, alchemists, or geographers, all lived alongside master craftsmen of various trades, and royal treasurers or officials.

to the presence of a Jewish Quarter in Barcelona as from the 11th century, various chronicles tell of how of a Judean was an important intermediary between the Bishop of Barcelona and Emperor Charles the Bald, three centuries before. Known as the Call Major, the largest section of the Jewish quarter lay between the line of the Roman walls, between Arc de Sant Ramon del Call and Banys Nous, Calle del Call, the line of buildings between Calle Sant Honoral and Calle del Sisbe, and Sant Sever. It is here that a restored former Hebrew building now houses the Barcelona Call Visitor Centre. The Carrer Sant Domnech remains its axis, although little is left of the Call Menor, or Smaller Jewry, which lay outside the city walls as from 1257, due to the urban expansion of the city in the 19th century.

Plaza del Rey

A community of wise men

Just like other Spanish communities, the
Jews of Barcelona went through different stages of co-existence with other town settlers. While in the 11th century, the famous Hebrew writer and traveller, Benjamin of Tudela wrote in his Book of Travels that there was a holy community of wise and prudent men and great princes, at other times, particularly from the 14th and 15th centuries onwards, Barcelona Jews saw their neighbourhood become a ghetto, where they were segregated, confined and, at times, attacked. This, for example, occurred in 1367, when some of the leading representatives of the aljama, such as Nissim Girond, Hasday Cresques or Isaac Perfet, were imprisoned in the Greater Synagogue itself, and forced to respond to accusations concerning a case of the profanation of the sacred host by Jews in Girona.

Montju c Palace

Among the many topographical features

Detail of the ceramic decoration on the Portaferrissa fountain

relating to Jews in Barcleona, one of the most memorable is the Monjuich, the Mons Judaicus or Mountain of the Jews, where for centuries, the Hebrew community buried its dead.

Town Council building

Casa Batll

Declared a World Heritage Site in 1986,

Caceres has one of the most well-preserved and charming old medieval town centres in Europe. The ancient Norbensis Caesarina was founded in the year 34 BC by the Roman Proconsul, Caius Norbanus Flaccus. The flourishing Hizn Qazris, which was an Almohad stronghold in the 12th century, that resisted attack by Christian kingdoms, had a Jewish quarter that should not be missed by tourists visiting this city full of ancient tales and history.

C
In the lower part of the walled town, spreading
upwards to meet the sheltering walls of the noble houses of Las Cigeas and Las Veletas, the aljama, or Jewry, of Caceres was home to some 130 families in the 13th century. They lived in modest dwellings that stood on narrow, sloping alleys. It was a popular neighbourhood, still filled with bright flowers and light even today, and it stands on either side of the Calle Barrio de San Antionio. The Arco de Cristo, the only Roman arch still standing, which led from the aljama to the outside of the town, or the Olivar de la Judera, or Jewry Olive Grove next to the walls, still have a strong feel of the past to them.
Hermitage of San Antonio

CERES

The hermitage of San Antonio today stands

on the site of the synagogue of the Old Jewry, which was demolished by the Lord of Torres Arias, Alfonso Golfn. He had bought it in 1470, thanks to the Decree on the removal of Jews. Up until then, local Hebrews had had the right to prove their innocence by swearing on the Torah, here in the synagogue. According to this privilege, Should they have no Torah, they shall use the Book of the Ten Commandments. As for the magnificent private baths that can be seen on the tour of Yusuf al-Burchs House and Museum, on the Cuesta del Marqus, nobody has yet been able to decide whether they were Arab baths or a traditional mikve, where Jewish ritual baths took place.

Cceres Museum, water deposit

Monumental city of Cceres

A MEDIEVAL FLAVOUR
The earliest documents on the Jewish
community in Caceres are dated 1229, in the Charter of Caceres, granted by Alfonso IX of Leon, but there is little doubt that there was a Hebrew population throughout the several hundred years of Muslim rule. In fact, recent theories mention the possible existence of a Jewish community in Caceres back in Roman times, as part of a contingent that came to Extremadura after being expelled from Jerusalem by Emperor Titus in the 2nd century. This is according to the Book of Tradition, by the 12th-century thinker and historian, Abraham Ibn Daud. Alongside their traditional professions as craftsmen and tradesmen, the way of life of the Jews of Caceres also revolved round agriculture and livestock. The aljama grew in size in the 14th century, with the arrival of Jews fleeing the persecutions of 1391, and for several years it was the last refuge of Andalusian Sephardic Jews, prior to their definitive expulsion in 1492, and following their exile, nine years earlier.

In the 15th century, the Jewish Quarter of

Caceres was one of the five highest tax contributors in the Kingdom of Castile. In the last quarter of the century, under the auspices of Isabel the Catholic, the New Judera, or Jewish Quarter, began to be built outside the city walls, around the Plaza Mayor. The Calle de la Cruz, which, along with todays Calle de la Panera, was the heart of this new settlement, was known as the Calle de la Judera up until the 16th century. The elaborate Palace of La Isla stands on the site of the synagogue of the new Judera, and it still contains details that are reminders of the spirit of the Jews of Caceres.
Plaza de Santa Mara

Houses in Cceres old Jewish quarter

Plaza Mayor

A
CRDOB
The administrative centre of Roman
Hispania Ulterior, the flourishing capital of alAndalus and the powerful Umayyad dynasty, Corodoba today is a World Heritage Site of outstanding beauty, and rightly proud of being a city of the three cultures.

THE CRADLE OF KNOWLEDGE

Until the Attack on the Jewish Quarter,
in 1391, when both Jews and converts were dispersed all over the city, the limits of the Cordova aljama were clearly defined: it ran from the Almodvar Gateway to the Mosque, which later became the Cathedral. Separated from the rest of the town by its own wall, there were two entrances to the Hebrew quarter: the Judera Gateway, near the Mosque, and the Malburguete Gateway, of which there only remains documentary evidence. This did not prevent many Cordovan Jews from living in other parts of the city, alongside the houses of Christians. Unlike other areas, the Jewish Quarter still preserves its original layout, typical of Muslim town planning, with its maze of narrow, twisting streets, and its houses looking more inwards than outwards.

Although they had settled in Andalusia

Interior view of the Mosque

long before, Cordovan Jews saw their earliest period of splendour when, in 929, Caliph Abd arRahman II came to power. This was mainly due to the influence of his prime minister, a Jew named Hasday ben Saprut, the head of the Andalusian Hebrew communities, and one of the great figures of Andalusian culture at that time. The fall of the Caliphate and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Taifas a century later, (1031), meant another golden age for many Andalusian Jewish communities, when local monarchs encouraged cultural development. But in Cordova, it brought about a massive loss of influence, which was not recovered until the Christian King Ferdinand III conquered the city in 1236, which was followed by a policy of tolerance by Alfonso X the Wise.

Alley in the Jewish quarter

Maimonides

10

Mosque

The synagogue of Cordova, in Calle Judos,

is the most treasured piece of architecture in the neighbourhood. Declared a National Monument in 1885, it was built in the 15th century. Comprising a courtyard, vestibule and a large prayer room, it is exquisitely decorated in the Mudejar style and was built, as was the custom, by Muslim masterbuilders, or alarifes. The Hebrew inscriptions on the balconies of the azara, the gallery where women attended services, or the magnificent blind ogee arch, delicately worked with arabesque motifs, and which must have once held the bimah, or the pulpit for reading of the Torah, are some highlights of the temple, which, according to an inscription, was the provisional sanctuary and home of the Testimony, finished by Isaq Moheb, son of Ephraim Waddawa.

We cannot speak of Cordova without

mentioning Mosea ben Maimon (1135-1138) known the world over as Maimonides (or Rambam, to Jewish people). He was the leading figure in the cultural apogee of the Caliphate, and a forerunner of the 12th-century European Humanist Renaissance, which was brought about by means of communication amongst different cultures. A physician, exegete, philosopher and mathematician, Maimonides wrote books in Arabic that were immediately translated into Hebrew and Latin and, at the age of 30 he left Cordova on a pilgrimage throughout Andalusia, North Africa and, finally, to Egypt where he died. Along with his Muslim contemporary Averroes, and his Roman predecessor, Seneca, he is the best representative of the great city of universal culture that is Cordova.

Cordova Synagogue

Synagogue on Calle Judos

View at night

11

G
View of El Onyar

IRONA

A stronghold on the way from Tarraco to

Gaul, founded by the Roman general Pompey Magnus in the 1st century AD, Girona in the Middle Ages was already considered the Key to the Kingdom and, metaphorically, the gateway to Sepharad for Hispanic Jews. With its treasure trove of wisdom over the centuries, today Girona has an enviable combination of respect for the past and vision of the future, making it one of the cities with the best quality of life in Spain.

In the year 890, the arrival in the city of

the first contingent of 25 Jewish families was recorded. They came from a small town in the neighbouring County of Besal. They settled in the upper part of the town and devoted themselves to farming fruit and vegetables and vineyards, under the protection of the Counts themselves. They gradually took part in the financial life of Girona and, by the 12th century, Jews were fully integrated into the citys life, working in various sectors of its trade and finance. Throughout the 13th century and during the first half of the 16th century, the community reached its period of greatest splendour, comprising 7% of the citys population with the arrival of new families from France, and enjoying the full confidence of the reigning monarchs. The Jew Astrug Ravaia was named bayle (governor) of Girona by Jaime I, and his son Moss Ravaia was made General Bayle of Catalonia.

12

THE KEY TO SEPHARAD

The increase in population as from the
12th century meant that the area inhabited by the Jewish community was moved to a lower part of the city, although many Jews continued to own houses in different parts of the city. Then came the municipal order of 1448, which definitively turned the Jewish quarter into a ghetto. Before it was declared a forbidden area to Jews, at the end of the 14th century, the Calle de la Fora - the old Via Augusta that ran through the city from north to south - had been the backbone of the aljama. Later, the centre of the Jewry moved to Call de Sant Lloren, where a new synagoguye was built, and where the Casa Colls stands - a building that used to be the home of Lle Avinay, the last leader of Girona s Jewish quarter.

Tombstones at the History of the Jews Museum

Besides the establishments essential to

any Jewish quarter, such as the butchers, the fishmongers, and the bakery, the Girona call also contained a hospital, an orphanage and a charity institution. It also had at least three synagogues. The first stood between the Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace, and was abandoned when the community moved to a new location. The second, dating from the 13th century, is at 23, Calle de la Fora, opposite todays steps up to the Virgin of La Pera. The third stood in the Calle de Sant Lloren, and had baths, a school for women, and a hospital. Today, it is the Bonastruc a Porta Centre, and houses the Catalonian Museum on the History of the Jews and the Nahmnides Institute of Studies, named in honour of Moss ben Nahman (Bonastruc a Porta, in Catalan), who was a philosopher, exegete, poet, physician, leading Cabbalist and one of the great figures of Catalonian Medieval history. The museum contains, along with many other pieces, a splendid collection of tombstones from the nearby Hebrew cemetery of Montjuc, dating from between the 12th and 15th centuries. The Main Historical Archives hold a valuable series of fragmented documents with Hebrew writing on them that were found in the sleeve of some 14th and 15th-century notarys books. The Municipal Archives contain a treasure: a collection of ninety, 12th-14th-century Hebrew documents, which are a valuable testimony of the cultural life of the Jewish community in Girona.

Calle de la Fora

Patio of the Bonastruc a Porta Centre

Model of the Call de Girona. History of the Jews Museum

Sant Lloren, Jewish quarter

Quetub in the History of the Jews Museum

13

Hervs, with the Jewish quarter in the background

H
Lying in the north of the province of Caceres,
in the Ambroz river valley, an area that was occupied in succession by Celts and Iberians, Pheonicians and Greeks, Hervs emerged towards the end of the 12th century with the advance of the Castilian king Alfonso VIII and the recovery of a region devastated by the Almohads, whose early population were the Knights Templar. Very soon, in the 13th century, coinciding with the first documents mentioning it by name, Hervs saw the arrival of the first contingent of Jews from various different aljamas in Andalusia and Castile. They soon built their own neighbourhood on the banks of the river, forming an unusual group of buildings that has been preserved until now, and which was declared a Historical and Artistic Site in 1969.

ERVS

With connections to the Jewish quarter

in Bjar, the aljama in Hervas was devoted to agriculture and, in particular, vineyards, as well as trades and crafts. Settling in the Lower Quarter, the towns Jewish population would go up to the Upper Quarter, along the Cuestecilla, while the Christians from the upper part of the city would go down to the Jewish quarter along the Calle de Abajo. The main building materials for the houses in the Jewish quarters were rough stone and adobe, making use of the nearby riverbank, along with wood from local chestnut trees. They were built on two storeys with an attic that was used as storage for cereals or as a larder.

General view

Jewish quarter

Calle de Hervs

14

AND THE LEGEND OF THE ERRANT JEWESS

The synagogue was built using the same
popular materials, and its Talmudic school was famous throughout Extremadura. Tradition has it that it stood in Calle de Rabilero, although it later changed location several times. Rabbi Samuel, the physician and notary of the Duke of Bjar, was the owner of the synagogue and he managed it in an exemplary fashion until he was exiled to Portugal following the edict of 1492. The Calle JudeoCristiana, Calle del Vado and Calle Cofrades make up the Jewish corrala, or yard, at the centre of the Hervs aljama. In the last of these three streets stood the Communal Assembly of the Hebrews which after the expulsion of the Jews became the headquarters of the processional brotherhood of converts, or cofrada de conversos. Inside, all the elements necessary for making Kosher wine were found.

The tale of the Maruxa, or the Errant Jewess,

is another of the towns oldest traditions. Quite a number of locals, on their evening walks near the Chiquita fountain, claim to have heard the grievous sobbing of the young Jewess who was in love with a handsome young Christian. She protected him with her own body and died alongside him when her father sent hired assassins to kill him. Buried in a secret place beside the river Ambroz, far from the Hebrew cemetery, the Maruxa only appears to warn of some approaching misfortune

Jewish quarter

Evoking its Jewish past is an intimate part

of the essential spirit of Hervas. For several years now, in the early summer, local inhabitants dress up as ancient Hebrews and celebrate, in memory of this group of ancestors, by performing the play Los Conversos, or The Converts, by Solly Wolodarsky. Sweet soup, nuegados dessert, tishpitti cake, or veal stew with chestnuts are old Sephardic recipes that are part of the towns best local cuisine, and that of the whole of Extremadura. Since 1971, in Calle de la Amistad Judeo-Cristiana, there has been a plaque that states: The inhabitants of Hervs have named this street in memory of its Jewish population. Its name is a symbol full of hope. The name means Street of Judeo-Christian Friendship.

Jewish quarter

Church of San Juan

Jaens strategic position on the upper

Guadalquivir, standing at the entrance to Andaluca from the east coast and the Castilian plateau, has meant there has been a permanent cultural exchange between many different civilisations. This traditional spirit of tolerance explains the early presence of Jews in this Andalusian provincial capital. It was documented for the first time in the year 612, but probably dates from much earlier. Since early times, the Hebrews of Jaen presumably lived alongside Romans, Visigoths, (first the Arians, then the Christians), Muslims and then again with Christians, until they were expelled in the 15th century.

The importance of Jans Jewish quarter

is highlighted by the presence there of Hasday ibn Shaprut, counsellor to the Caliphs of Cordova, promoter of Hispano-Hebrew poetry, and a 10thcentury forerunner of the so-called Golden Age of Spanish Jews. His relationship to the Jewish kingdom of the Khazars, or his introduction of eastern-style Rabbinical schools into al-Andalus gave him a well-deserved reputation as a universal man. In the 11th century, as part of the Ziri kingdom of Granada, Jaen retained its status as a city of knowledge, and this same spirit of communication among different communities remained when the Christians arrived.

J
The Cathedral seen from the Hill of Santa Catalina

AN

Iberian sculpture. Jan Museum

AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPANISH JEWS

El ngel Gateway and the Convent of Las Bernardas

Roman Mosaic. Jan Museum

Los Vilches Palace

The persecutions of 1391, however, marked

the beginning of the end of a period of cooperation between the three great medieval cultures, and the aljama became a neighbourhood of Jewish converts, changing its name to the Santa Cruz quarter. The Jaen Jews love of their city -many of them became false conversos and continued their Hebrew rites in secret - along with their refusal to leave, led to the Court of the Holy Inquisition being set up there in 1483 (it was the third of them, after Seville and Cordova), which coincided with the decree of expulsion of Andalusian Jews. For a long time afterwards, many Jewish converts worked as administrators in the delightful Renaissance cathedral, despite the fact that it was here that the very spirit of the Statutes of Blood Cleansing was forged, and that, in the square overlooked by the cathedral, numerous Autos de Fe took place.

The old Jewish quarter of Jaen stood

between the modern streets of San Andr s, Hurfanos, Los Caos-Arroyo de San Pedro and Martnez Molina, forming part of fortified walls of the old city. The neighbourhood is made up of a tightly huddled group of houses, with a typically Moorish street layout, communicating with the outside through just three entrances, one of them at the Baeza Gateway. The synagogue was built onto the convent of Santa Clara, and the house of Ibn-Shaprut stood opposite the Cad house, in the Magdalena square. Jans impressive Arab baths date from the 11th century and are the largest still standing in Spain. They can be reached through the courtyard of the Villardompardo palace and were used by the Jewish population on Fridays, the day before the Sabbath; near to the church of San Andrs there were other baths, known as the Hammam ibn Ishaq (Baths of the Son of Isaac), which date from the same time. The structure of the church itself seems to indicate that, before becoming Christian, it was once a synagogue.

The Plaza de los Hurfanos square today

contains a large menorah with an inscription in Spanish and Sephardic, that reads: Las trasas de ken anduvieron endjuntos nunca podrn ser albaldadas (The footprints of those who walked together can never be erased).

Castle of Santa Catalina

The Cathedrals main facade

17

L
Collegiate of San Isidoro, Pantheon of Kings Contemporary Art Museum

EN

The capital of the old kingdom of Leon,

which stands on the site of the Roman settlement founded on the banks of the river Bernesga by the Legio VII in 68AD, is one of the main stops on the pilgrims Way of St. James, or Road to Santiago. It is a modern city, whose period of greatest splendour was in the Middle Ages, when it was decisive in terms of consolidating the Christian Reconquest.

The first Jewish settlement in Leon was

in the Puente Castro neighbourhood, outside the city walls, and also known as the Castrum Iudeorum or Jewish Hill Fort. It stood on the southern slope of La Mota hill, which had previously been occupied by an Astur castro or hill fort, and later by the Roman and Medieval fortresses. The first Hebrew families must have arrived in around the 10th century, and over the next two centuries it became an influential aljama with, at one point, a thousand inhabitants - almost a third of the citys population. The Hebrews of Castrum Iudeorum, protected by the Charter of 1090 which gave them practically the same rights as the Christians, owned their own land for farming and winegrowing. But, above all, they were the mainstay of Leons commercial activity. The Cathedral Museum, the Museum of Leon, and the Synagogue of El Trnsito, in Toledo, all contain valuable tombstones in their collections that were uncovered during excavations at the Castro de los Judos.

18

AND THE CASTRUM IUDEORUM

The defensive features of the quarter
enabled the Jews of Len to withstand for almost three days the joint attack. in July 1196, of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Pedro I of Aragn, who took advantage of their rivalry with Alfonso XI of Leon to inflict as much damage as possible on what was one of the strongest financial centres of the region. Following the attack, the Jewish quarter was ransacked and destroyed, and survivors had to move to the Santa Ana neighbourhood outside the city walls. From the 13th century onwards, the New Jewish Quarter lay between the squares of Plaza Mayor, Santa Ana and Del Grano. Today, the buildings, cellars and passageways that lie within this triangle are being restored. They were once part of the old Jewish settlement where Mosh de Len was born, in 1240. His Book of Splendour is considered one of the leading Hebrew Cabbalistic texts. Although the old names of the streets in the Jewish quarter, such as Cal de la Sinagoga or Cal Silvana, were changed to Misericordia, or Puerta del Sol, the famous Barrio Hmedo (or wet neighbourhood, in reference to its bars and taverns), which is one of the citys main gastronomic attractions, has streets that serve as a reminder of the trades of the Jewish craftsmen of the Middle Ages: Zapater as (Shoemaker s), Plater as (Silversmith s) or Azabachera (Black Jet Jewellers).

Calle Ancha

The Main Synagogue of the new aljama

stood in Calle Misericordia, while the palace of the Marquises of Jabalquinto - which stands in the middle of the Barrio Hmedo and has been converted for a variety of purposes - is a reminder of the Jewish converso origins of a family who, having embraced Christianity after the 15thcentury persecutions, became famous in the 19th century for their support of the Carlist cause against the Royalists. Right next to the medieval walls was the Prado de Los Judios, or Meadow of the Jews, the old Hebrew cemetery, where generations of Leonese Jews were buried. The cathedral itself, or Pulchra leonina, is a magnificent example of the Gothic style imported from France in the 13th and 14th centuries. One of the frescoes in its ambulatory, painted by Nicols Francs, still bears witness to the Jews who lived here alongside Christians, and portrays them wearing their 15th century clothing.

Len Cathedral. Stained-glass windows

Street cafes in Barrio Humedo

Old City Council Cathedral

19

O
King Alfonso II chose Oviedo as the capital
of the Kingdom of Asturias in the year 808 AD. The city, which stands on the site of an ancient monastic settlement on the Oveto hill, has continued to grow ever since, until it has become the political and administrative centre of the Principality of Asturias, and one of the most charming cities in Spain. It is a city full of historical features that housed a Jewish quarter that was part of its social and economic life for centuries.
Plaza de Alfonso II the Chaste

V I E D O AND THE OMES BONOS

Although documents such as the Charter

of Alfonso VII, of 1145, or, before that, the Letter of Donation of Didago Osoriz, in 1046 - in which there are several references to a conversa, or converted Jewess - would seem show that there was a Jewish presence in Oviedo sometime before the 11th century, there is actually no reliable documentary evidence of the community until the following century. The 12th-century growth of the Oviedo aljama increased in the 13th century, thanks to the climate of tolerance fostered by the unification of the Kingdoms of Castile and Leon, under Fernando II. It was also helped by the rise in popularity of the Way of St. James, because one of the compulsory stops on the Road to Santiago was a pilgrimage to the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo. Also, new families arrived from the south of Sepharad, forced out by Almohad persecution. It is hardly surprising then that the Jew Mari Xabe was appointed Merino of Oviedo, an administrative position of great fiscal and legal responsibility.

Plaza del Fontn

20

Palace of Santa Mara del Naranco

Things started to change for the Hebrew

community in the last quarter of the 13th century. If, until then, it had been common to find Jewish households all over the city, alongside their Christian neighbours, the Orders of the Council of Oviedo of 1274 clearly set out what the location of the Jewry should be, stating that Jews spread to live in the town, which was harmful to the town in many ways that we do not wish to declare. The limits of the aljama were, from this time on, from the Castillo Gateway to the Puerta Nueva de Socastiello, and from the Gateway outwards, if they so desire. This meant it was a narrow piece of land with around 50 houses for no more than 500 people. In the Plaza de Trascorrales, where there is a monument to a Milkmaid, there were Jewish fishmongers and, close by, Jewish butchers. In Plaza Porlier the Royal Castle once stood, and this was one of the limits of the aljama, as can be seen from the tourist map shown here. As you can see on the plaque at the other end of the Jewish quarter, in Plaza Juan XXIII, King Sancho IV decreed in 1286 that que los jud os non ayan alcaldes apartados como agora aven, (Jews no longer have their own mayors as they once had) once again restricting their rights. In the 15th century, there came the confiscation of the synagogues in the diocese of Oviedo, and Bishop Don Gutierres threat of excommunication for all those who had anything to do with the Jews. This was a direct attack on the peaceful coexistence of citizens of the town who had different beliefs.

In the Campoamor theatre, where, today,

the Prince of Asturias Award ceremony is held every year, presided by Crown Prince Philip, a plaque commemorates the Jewish cemetery that once stood on the same site, quoting the deed of sale, on behalf of and as heir to my father, Don Yua, physician, a plot of land close to the Campo de los omes bonos, [Field of Good Men] and known as the Jewish orchard. This is one more reminder of those citizens of Oviedo who, in documents that go back centuries, added to their name and particulars, the words Hombre bueno Judo, or Good Jewish Man.

Calle Cimadevilla

Cathedral

Plaza de Juan XXIII

P
The capital of the Balearic Islands, a secular
maritime college and a reference for Mediterranean culture over the centuries, Palma de Mallorca can pride itself on being one of the Spanish cities with the earliest Jewish settlements, dating from the 5th century, when Jews lived alongside Christians long before Moorish rule. The xuetes, or chuetas, which was the name given to Majorcan Jews even today, were experts in astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and science, and contributed greatly to the cultural prestige of Palma de Mallorca in the Middle Ages. When the Christians re-conquered Palma (1229-30), they found the Jewish quarter lay inside the Moorish fortified town, north of the Almudaina castle, and the first transfer of the Hebrew population took place, to the Call Menor, or Smaller Jewish Quarter. It stood at the top of the San Nicols neighbourhood, along Calle San Bartolom and Calle Argentera, but no original buildings remain.
22

ALMA DE MALLORCA
One of the many testimonies of the Jewish
presence in Palma is the Torre de lAmor, or Tower of Love. It was built in 1365 by Moss Faquim, in order to spy on his next-door neighbour, the wife of his rival, Magaluf Natjar, with whom he was in love. By making a petition to the king, Natjar managed to have the tower shortened by 12 hands, in order to keep his privacy. There are also the splendid Rimmonims of the Torah, which today are part of to the Cathedral treasure, and which became part of the Christian liturgy after the 15th century conversions. In 1391, the local peasants attacked the Jewry, a bloodthirsty event that resulted in the loss of over 300 lives, and which was the forerunner of the 1435 conversions. This did not prevent many Jews secretly continuing to remain faithful to the tradition they had held for so many generations. Even in 1678, the Inquisition caught a group of 212 xuetes, or false converts to Christianity who still practiced Jewish rites, in Palma de Mallorca.

A new quarter, the Call Mayor, was created

under King Jaume II, who confirmed the privileges granted to the Jews by Jaume I the Conqueror, but in 1303 Hebrews were obliged to eat and sleep inside the Jewish quarter, although they could run their business outside of it. Many of the houses in this quarter belonged to the Knights Templar, who protected the Jews until the orders demise in 1313. Some of the more noteworthy buildings can be seen on Carrer del Sol, previously known as Carrer de Call dels Jueus, or Jewry Street, where there stands a house that once belonged to a rich Jew, and which has now been turned into the Tourism College; or the Carrer Montesin, with a church of the same name that stands on the site of the old synagogue, the Carrer Montserrat, where the Old Synagogue or Jewish School once stood, the Plaza de Sant Jeroni, near which is the so-called Sapienza land, where the house of cartographers Abraham Cresques and his son Jafuda once stood; the Princes bulwark, built over the 14th-century Jewish cemetery; the Carrer de les Ecoles, or Carrer Pelleteria, (Furriers Street), also known as New Synagogue Street, which reminds us of the importance of the furriers trade in the Hebrew community, and where you can still see the crosses that the New Christians placed on the faade of their houses to avoid trouble.

AND THE LEGACY OF THE MAJORCAN JEWS

La Almudiana Palace

Palma de Mallorca at night

Maritime boulevard

Rimmonim. Cathedral Treasury

The painter Mirs Sert studio

Mallorca Cathedral Treasury

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A
R I B A D AV I
Jewish quarter Castle of the Counts of Ribadavia Porta Nova Valparaso Vineyards in Ribadavia

PROSPERITY

Pre-Romanesque Church of San Xes

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BASED ON WINE
Ribadavia, strategically placed between
Orense and Vigo, and the mother of high-carat wine according to the 16th-century scholar Molina, is the capital of the Ribeiro district. Over the centuries, its Jewish community - the largest and wealthiest in Galicia - had much to do with Riberio wine-growing and wine trade.

Plaza Garca Boente

Calle de Merelles Caula, traditionally

known as Calle de la Judera, or Jewry Street, soon became the heart of a large neighbourhood between the Plaza Mayor and the Medieval walls, and which housed the synagogue. At some points, it was home to many families, right up until the 17th century. Ribadavia s historic centre, including the Jewish quarter, has been declared a National Monument. Its street layout is medieval, with long, narrow streets, and arcades underneath the overhanging balconies to protect the lower floors from rain, and it is mainly built of stone. The Jewish quarter ends at the Plaza de la Magdalena, the old Plaza Vieja, the oldest square in the town, which is very close to the Porta Nova gate, the natural entrance to the Jewry through the walls.

But all this Jewish past, with five centuries

of peaceful co-existence, is not just another aspect of the towns history; it is, today, one of its main tourist attractions. The Galician Sephardic Museum, which belongs to the Town Council, and the Centre for Medieval Studies actively organize the Festa de la Istoria, or History Festival, in which the whole town of Ribadavia takes part. The Centre for Sephardic Studies regularly organizes concerts, conferences and cultural activities related to the Jews, and it actively participates in the organization of the Festa de la Istoria, which has been declared a National Tourist event. The Festival, which takes place every year on the last week-end in August, when Ribadavia becomes a Medieval town once again, includes events such as the ritual celebration of a Jewish wedding or the performance of the play Malsn, of 1606, which proved that the towns Jews continued their traditions in secret, in collusion with the local inhabitants, more than a century after the Catholic Monarchs expelled them. The Tourist Office in the Plaza Mayor houses the Galician Sephardic Musuem.

The creation of the capital of the Kingdom

of Galicia in 103 by Don Garca, and the immediate prosperity of Ribadavia meant that, in the 11th century, many Jewish families settled in the town, and the Jewish quarter in the heart of the medieval town has now been declared a Cultural Heritage Site. The Jews of Ribadavia owned the vineyards and were fully integrated into the society of the time. The names of people such as Abraham de Len, Jud Prez or the physician Salomn, are a part of local history, and a reminder that among the towns Jews there was a privy councillor to the King and several administrators of the House of the Counts of Ribadavia. Others were traders, craftsmen, physicists or money-lenders. They all contributed to Ribadavias wealth, based on the production and trade of Riberio wine, particularly in the 15th and 16th centuries.

A Tafona de Herminia, a traditional bakery,

makes confectionary with poppy seeds, and cardamoms, mostachudos made of walnuts, cloves and cinnamon, according to original Hebrew recipes; some ingredients are even imported directly from Israel. These tiny delicacies are a reminder of flavours from a time when Jews were an essential part of Ribadavias everyday life.

Porta da Vila

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S
Segovia aqueduct

E G O V I A A TOWN
The character of Segovia has been marked
since the 1st century AD by its Roman aqueduct. A World Heritage Site, Segovias history embraces the legacy of both the Romans and the Visigoths, as well as that of the cultural melting-pot of the Middle Ages, and for centuries it was a haven for the peaceful coexistence of Jews, Moors and Christians.

The repopulation of Segovia in the 11th

century, which put an end to its long period as a no-mans-land between the Muslim and Christian kingdoms, was also when the first Jewish settlers arrived. Over the next few centuries, they joined in the monumental task of turning the city into one of the wealthiest in Castile and Spain. With just over fifty families, the aljama of Segovia was one of the wealthiest in Castile, and its Jewish inhabitants were physicists, craftsmen in a wide range of trades, surgeons and tradesmen. Some of them, such as Abraham Seneor, became administrators of the royal income, and a great many conversions took place under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs.

San Andrs Gateway. Segovia City Wall

There is no documentary evidence of

persecution or violence towards Jews in Segovia. However, although many of them had previously lived in different parts of the city, Catherine of Lancasters Pragmatic Decree of 1412 obliged Segovian Jews to remain within the Jewish quarter. Then in 1481, the Catholic Monarchs decreed that the Jewry should be closed off by seven gateways with brickwork arches.

26

OF PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
The Jewish Butchers, in the Almuzara
area, was mentioned in a document dated 1287 that was the first to accredit the existence of Hebrews in the city. There were at least two of these shops, one near the Casa del Sol and the other by the San Andrs Gateway. The streets of Judera Vieja and Judera Nueva are reminders of the former inhabitants of this district of stone, brick and wooden houses, often decorated with Segovias famous scratchwork faades, with a few noble houses with coats of arms over the doorway and arcaded courtyards. After the expulsion, these became the homes of rich conversos, who were reluctant to leave the home of their ancestors when this was no longer the Jewish Quarter, and as known as the Barrio Nuevo, or New Quarter.

Alcazar

The Jewish quarter of Segovia is a large

area on the south side of the city, between the churches of Corpus Christi and San Andr s, alongside the city walls. The church of Corpus Christi stands on the site of the old Greater Synagogue, and despite the fire of 1899 which reduced the building to its present structure, it still retains five of the original six or seven Moorish arches on the two arcades that divide the aisles. The 52 smaller arches on the upper floor, and the Mudejar-style decoration on the coffered ceiling of the church give some idea of the size of the former Jewish temple. The Ibaez synagogue, also known as the New Greater Synagogue, stood in the Plaza de San Geroteo. It was bought by the City Council in 1492, and then in 1507 by one Bartolom Ibez,

and remained in his family until the early 20th century, when it was sold to the Daughters of Jesus nuns. It is a single-nave building, and all that remains of the original is part of an ox-eye window. Besides these two, according to documents, there was also an Old Synagogue, in what is now the Plaza de la Merced, with, next to it, one of Segovias two Talmudic schools; and the Campo synagogue, which stood next to the San Andrs Gateway and which had an adjoining hospital.

Old Main Synagogue

Entrance street to the old city

27

T
View of Toledo

O L E D O , THE GR

28

There is documentary evidence of the

presence of Jews in Toledo since Roman times, in the 4th century, but their arrival much earlier is linked to the legendary foundation of the city. This was the Toletum of the Carpetans and Romans; the civitas regia capital of the Spanish Visigoth Kingdom; the Muslim Toleitola that was such an example of peaceful coexistence between the three cultures; the Toledo of Alfonso X the Wise and the School of Translators; the city of El Greco and the leading Episcopal Cathedral of Spain. But this Castilian city was also the great Jewry of the West, a spiritual centre that, for centuries, was a reference for all the Jews of Europe.

The Cambrn Gateway, built on the remains

of an earlier Visigoth gateway, was the main entrance to the Jewry, which stretched as far as the Cathedral, and at one time had more than 10 synagogues and a population of three to four thousand people. During the first week of September every year, Jews are the focus of attention in Toledo, when a major convention is held here on Jewish culture. Their presence can still be felt, in what was for centuries their hometown, and highlights inlcude the remains of the old baths, or mikve, inside the El Greco house and museum, or the Casa del Judio, or Jews House, at number 4, Calle de San Juan de Dios. But above all, it can be felt in the two great synagogues that still stand in the town.
Synagogue of Santa Mara La Blanca

EAT WESTERN JEWRY

Designed as a city within a city, the medinat
al yahud, the Jewish fortified town, stood, according to various historical accounts, to the south-west of the city, and the inhabitants would go right down to the river Tagus to drink. It was a complex network of walls, alleys and passageways with its own fortified remparts and many gateways leading to other neighbourhoods in the town. Inside, there flourished poets and philosophers, Rabbis and scientists, geographers, translators and others who were role-models and examples to other European Jewish communities. In the 13th century, the work of Yehuda ben Moiss Cohen, an author of the Alfonsine Tables, and Isaac ben Sayid, along with that of other Jews and a large number of Christian and Muslim scholars, was decisive to the recovery of fundamental Greek works by the Toledo School of Translators, and they were divulged throughout Europe from the city of Toledo, during one of the citys greatest periods of cultural splendour.

The synagogue of El Trnsito, which houses

the Sephardic Museum, is undoubtedly the prime example of the art of the Muslim master-builders who worked for the Jews. It comprises a large prayer room, an azara, or womens gallery, the rooms of the old Rabbinic school (now the museum), and the remains of the ritual baths, with their water tanks. A highlight is the magnificent plasterwork and the ceiling, which is one of the finest examples of medieval carpentry in Toledo. On the west wall, where the hekal was kept (the Ark containing the Torah Scrolls), you can see a text praising Pedro I, a man of war and a brave warrior, whose diplomat and financial advisor, Samuel ha Lev Abulafia, was the patron of the temples construction in the 14th century.

Street in Toledo

Synagogue of Transito

The synagogue of Santa Mara la Blanca,

which opens on to the Calle de los Reyes Catlicos through a simple garden, is a symbol of the good relationship between King Alfonso XIII and the Jewish community. It has five aisles, separated by pillars holding up a magnificent arcade of horseshoe arches, and is reminiscent of a Muslim mosque. According to legend, the synagogue of Santa Mara la Blanca was built with earth brought from Jerusalem.

Cambrn Gateway

Cathedral

Tortosa Cathedral

View of the cloister next to the Cathedral

The capital of the Baix Ebre region, this

two-thousand year-old city was founded as a Roman colony in the 1st century BC. It looks out onto the Mediterranean thanks to its river, which gave its name to the Iberian Peninsula: the Ebro. An important Visigoth settlement and the capital of its own Taifa Kingdom under the Muslims, Tortosa had a significant Jewish population for centuries, who had a great deal to do with the towns prosperity in the Middle Ages.

A valuable stone plaque inscribed in three

languages - Hebrew, Greek and Latin - bears witness to the presence of the Jews in Tortosa in the 6th century, at the latest, under Visigoth rule, although quite possibly there were members of the Jewish community there in Roman times. A tradesman, poet and philologist, and the author of a grammar book commissioned by the Andalusian Hasday ibn Shaprut, Menahem ben Saruk was a Jew of great renown in Muslim Turtuxa, as was the physician, Ibrahim ben Iacob. Following the Christian conquest of the city in 1148, Count Ramn Berenguer IV handed over the Arab shipyards to the Jews, and they became what was known as the Old Jewry, which went from Calle Jaume Ti No to the Barranco del Clio, soon after the first sixty houses were built. Thanks to the many medieval documents still kept in Tortosa, it has been possible to locate the sites of the synagogue, the bakery and the butchers, none of which remain.

Night-time view from the river, castle in the background

30

A
TORTOS
In the early 13th century, the New Jewry The anti-Jewish revolts of 1391 were not
was formed, between Calle Mayor de Remolins and the old medieval walls. The outside was reached through the Hierro Gateway, which was also known as the Jews Gateway. It is the only one that remains from the old Jewry, and it led to the Hebrew cemetery. Both the Old and the New Jewry have maintained their charm, with their maze-like street layout and many topographical features that serve to remind us of the longstanding presence of the Jews in Tortosa. In the 14th century, there were quite a number of eminent inhabitants of the call, such as the brothers Isaac and Jafud Marili or Abraham Mair, who were bankers that financed a number of the Kings enterprises. as violent in Tortosa as elsewhere in Sepharad. Even so, to ensure their safety, the local authorities decided to confine the Hebrew community to the Castle of La Suda (now a Parador hotel), which stood on the city acropolis. The Tortosa Disputation, however, was famous throughout Spain and Europe. It was organized by Pope Benedict XIII, but initiated by his physician, a converso called Jernimo de Santa Fe. Tortosa cathedral was the backdrop for almost sixty public meetings, which lasted until 1414, and were chaired by the Pope. They were attended by the wisest of Jewish scholars, who debated the issue of the coming of the Messiah, which was the main point of controversy between Jews and Christians. The outcome was that all those Jews who took part in the polemic, except two, converted. It was a foretaste of what was to come with the Papal Bull of 1415, which seriously restricted the freedom of Jews.
View of Tortosa

AND THE DISPUTATION OF THE POLEMISTS

The Tortosa Jewish quarter is well signposted
and by following the signs, visitors can find the site of the synagogue, the early Talmudic school, the pottery, where Jewish hands carried on the Muslim tradition, or the bakery, where unleavened bread was baked for the Hebrew community.

Tourist Parador Hotel

31

Navarre, overlooking the river Ebro and at an equal distance from Zaragoza, Logroo, Pamplona and Soria, Tudela was founded by the Muslims in the 8th century, around the fortress built by Yusuf, a lieutenant of Emir Al Hakan I, in order to to consolidate the Northern frontier of al-Andalus. The Jewish presence there dates from this period, when the first town grew up around the alcazaba.

T
Calle Pontarrn

UDELA,

Plaza de los Fueros

A strategic enclave in the Kingdom of

Under Moorish rule, the Tudela Jewish

In 1170, King Sancho the Wise fostered the

quarter was a major commercial and cultural nucleus, and its Talmudic schools were as famous as its Islamic ones. When the city was handed over to the Christians in 1119, Alfonso the Battler recognized the Jewish community in the Charter of Njera, along with its rights and property, and set the limits of the aljama to be what we know today as the Judera Vieja, or Old Jewry, on the south of side of the wall. This initial settlement, very close to the river, contains houses with a 1.5 to 2m-high stone wall-base, to protect them from floods, and with three or four storeys made of brickwork.

creation of a Jewish quarter in the upper side of the city, protected by the Castle walls, and this became the New Jewish quarter, which existed alongside the Old Quarter for some time. There is evidence of at least two synagogues, the Greater and Smaller, plus a third one in the weavers neighbourhood. The Major synagogue, which has been beautifully restored, contains a large prayer room and a gallery (azar) for women at the end; the ceiling and the geometrical design on the walls date from the 13th century, while the delightful painted wooden structures are 15th-century.

General view of Tudela

32

In Christian times, the aljama of Tudela

was governed by a collegiate of twenty members, who were responsible for applying the Taccanot, which were decrees written between 1297 and 1305. Trade and crafts were the main occupations for Tudelan Jews, although some of them owned vineyards and others became important advisors of the aristocracy and the King. Three of them, at least, became known well beyond the local region. Yehuda ha-Lev (1070-1141) is considered the prince of Andalusian Hebrew poets and is one of the key figures of the diaspora. My heart is in the East, while I live in the extreme West, wrote the author Kuzari, one of the fundamental books on the conscience of the wandering people; he died on his way to Jerusalem, in Alexandria, aged almost seventy. Abraham ibn Ezr (1069-1164) was an itinerant scholar who lived in Cordova, Seville and Lucena. In 1140 he decided to travel through Europe and North Africa. After Maimonides, he is the greatest writer in Sepharad. Born after the city was conquered by the Christians, Benjamin de Tudela (1130-1175), was also a tireless traveller and scholar and a great polyglot. He left Tudela in 1160, and travelled to Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bagdad and Cairo, then returned to Paris. His Book of Travels is, even today, a key work in order to understand what Europe and the Middle East were like in the 12th century.

Plaza de los Fueros

THE CITY OF TRAVELLERS

Despite the existence of the Manta, or the

Mantle, a canvas containing the names of all Tudelas conversos that hung in the Cathedral until 1783, the truth is that Navarre held out against the Catholic Monarchs decree of expulsion for six whole years, and Tudela was famous at the time for protecting the murderers of the Inquisitor of Zaragoza.

View of Tudela

33

B
Roman bridge Jewish baths

E S A L , T h e J e w s o f t h e C o u n t s To w n Besal, in the Garrotxa district, is a magnificent Catalan town declared an Artistic-Historical Site, and was populated
by Iberians and Celts from the 1st century B.C. onwards. Its Latin name, Bisuldunum, dates from the Roman fortress between the rivers Fluvia and Capellades. The town, which was capital of an independent county between the years 902 and 1111, probably received its first Jewish inhabitants in the 9th century, although the first historical dating associates the Hebrew community with Jaume I the Conqueror, through a document from 1229. Joined to the Gerona aljama until the year 1342, when it became independent, the Besal jewry stood out thanks to the work of its doctors and, throughout its existence, it had a good relationship with jewries on the other side of the Pyrenees. The Des Catllars, Carcassonas or Belshom Ceravitas are some of the families that remained in the town until the end, after the killings of 1391, of which there was no evidence here. Some streets, such as Carrer Rocafort, conserve the old 13th-century jewrys layout virtually intact, although the most important monument is the baths or mikve, a Romanesque building from the 12th century, discovered by accident in 1964, unique in Spain and numbering among the finest of its characteristics in Europe; thirty-six steps lead into the large rectangular hall, built in stone, with the pool where Jews were purified by totally immersing their bodies in the nayim water. Near the mikve stood the synagogue, located in the modern-day Pla dels Jueus, built in the year 1264 following a privilege granted by the Conqueror.

A city with 2000 years history, lying at the fork in the rivers Ebro and Cidacos, Calagurris was an important
Roman settlement that gave the empire such writers as Marcus Fabius Quintilian or Aurelius Prudentius. The first document to mention the presence of Jews in Calahorra dates from the end of the 11th century, and it is precisely through abundant documentation that we know that this Riojan aljama, where the poet and theologian Abraham ibn Ezra spent the last years of his life, enjoyed significant agricultural, commercial and artisanal activity throughout the Middle Ages, and had a large number of doctors, landlords and tax collectors. The old jewrys location corresponds to what is now known as Rasillo de San Francisco, in the old Roman towns acropolis, under the protection of the castle. In the 15th century, it was the finest jewry in La Rioja, with a population of about 600 people and its own walled enclosure inside the city. The synagogue stood on the site now occupied by the Hermitage of San Sebastin. The diocesan museum of the cathedral conserves one of the citys treasures: the Torah discovered in 1929 as a cover of two books of Town council records from the 15th century; written on a parchment of goat skin, it stands out for the care taken with the writing and for the quality of the ink. After the expulsion, the surnames Calahorra or Calahora bear witness to the presence of old Calahorra Jews in Krakow (Poland), during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Monument to Quintilian

ALAHORRA, La Riojas main aljama

View of Calahorra

34

Founded in the year 1090 by King Sancho Ramrez, on the old Vascon town of Lizarra, Estella was a fundamental
location on the Camino de Santiago, whose age of glory is recalled by its magnificent Romanesque remains from the 11th and 12th centuries. The donation document of Olgacena, from 1135, registering the handing over of this site, which belonged to the Jews, to the Church of El Santo Sepulcro, represents the first testimony of Jewish presence in Estella, and also recalls the name of an aljama which, just a few years later, in 1144, also handed over the site of its synagogue for the construction of the Church of Santa Mara de Jus del Castillo. In the second half of the 12th century, however, a large number of Jews settled in Estella, forming an influential jewry that enjoyed the trust of the crown, to the extent that it was entrusted to guard the frontier of the Kingdom, and which possible had the only synagogue known that was exclusively for women. The jewry, comprised in the neighborhood of Elgacena, was first located below the castle and, in the 12th century, was moved inside the town walls. Apart from traditional Hebrew trades, such as crafts, commerce, medicine, agriculture or financial activities, Estellas Jewish tanners were renowned in their day. The historian and scholar of the Talmud Menahem ben-Zraj, in his book Zedah-Laderek, describes the bloody events of March, 1328, when the Jews of Estella, aided by many other Hebrews who had taken refuge in this jewry, faced off against their Christian attackers, who had to retreat and recruit peasants from neighbouring villages before, all together, they were able to plunder the neighborhood.

STELLA, and the aljama of Elgacena

Church of El Santo Sepulcro

View of Estella

M
View of the town Roman bridge

ONFORTE DE LEMOS, and the Rabudos Arranged around the hill of San Vicente, where there used to be a hillfort of the Lemavos (those of the flat and
fertile valley) and where the Castle of Los Condes now stands, Monforte de Lemos is a town with a solid historical basis integrated in the heart of the wine-producing districts of La Sacra Ribeira; monte fort (fortress hill) which enjoyed considerable privileges from the kings of Galicia in the Middle Ages. In this setting of aristocratic protection, both royal and from the counts, a Jewish community flourished in Monforte, at least from the first dating registered, in the 10th century, and it was an important part of the town s life until the end of the 15th century. Also distributed around different parts of the old quarter, Monfortes Hebrews had their traditional jewry around Calle Abelardo Baanante, known locally as A Calesa. At one point, they were so numerous that the townsfolk of Monforte themselves were nicknamed contemptuously as Jews or Rabudos (Tailed Ones). The tombstone found in the Jewish cemetery belonging to Juan Gaibor and his son, xudeos mayores (principal Jews) of the town, bears witness to the presence of a family of Jews, first, and later of converts, of considerable importance and influence in Monforte. After the conversion, the town was famous for registering the highest number of processes against secret worshippers of the Jewish faith in the 16th to 18th centuries. Legends like the Cristo de los Azotes, which was apparently secretly whipped by a Jew in the synagogue, or the story of the Cristo de la Colada, which a Jewish woman regularly dipped in a tub of hot water to distort its shape, are part of the towns most intimate stories.

35

P
Town walls

LASENCIA and the Jews of La Mota A key location on the Silver Route, on the banks of the River Jerte, Plasencia was founded ut placeat Deo el hominibus (to
please God and men) in the year 1180, by the Castilian King Alfonso VIII. A walled town, a place of study that at one point had three universities, from the very beginning of its medieval history, Plasencia included the presence of a significant community of Jews, whose contribution to the town s splendour in the 14th and 15th centuries was considerable. Of the four jewries in the diocese (Plasencia, Bjar, Medellin and Trujillo), the one in Plasencia was definitely the most economically prosperous. If the Jews prevailed over the Christians in bids for disbursements from the Ziga family in the 15th century, we know that many of them were landowners, and others leased vineyards to the Town Council in different parts of the municipal district. Although many of them lived in houses scattered around the town, the jewry was located in the neighbourhood of La Mota, which was turned into a ghetto between 1412 and 1419, by means of a fence and a gate closed at night. When the counts of Plasencia confiscated the old synagogue in 1477, in order to extend their palace and the Convent of San Vicente Ferrer (today a State Parador Hotel), the ghetto moved to around a new synagogue, built in Calle Trujillo, in the modern-day Plaza de Ansano, a site currently occupied by the Palace of the Carvajal family. Facing the Church of San Nicols, whose atrium was the scenario for the mixed litigations between Christians and Jews, was the Jewish brotherhood, which in its period of maximum splendour numbered two hundred families in Plasencia.

Inside the Parador Hotel

With two thousand years of history, Tarazonas heraldic arms bear the legendary motto of its foundation: Tubal Can
me aedificavit. Hrcules me raedificavit (Tbal and Cain built me. Hercules rebuilt me). Roman Turiaso was already home to an early contingent of Jews, who remained in the town with the Visigoths and the Muslims, and later with the Christians. In the 12th century, Mosh de Portella was Bailiff of the aljama and the town, controlling taxes and the frontier, and in the 14th century the jewry was plundered and destroyed by the Castillians during the War of the Two Pedros, with reconstruction work starting from 1370 onwards. The Turia jewrys period of maximum glory, comprising around four hundred people, did not suffer the bloody events of 1391 with the same intensity as other aljamas; after the Inquisition (1484) and the order of expulsion (1492) half the community left for Navarre and the other half converted to Christianity.
Street in Tarazona

ARAZONA and the Jewish Streets

Known as La Ra, after the expulsion, the old jewry was located next to La Zuda (the old Muslim citadel, now the Episcopal palace), around Calle Judera, in the neighborhood of El Cinto, whose Mudejar layout has survived to the present day. The Porticiella (in the Ra Baja) or the gateways of Plaza Nueva (now Plaza Espaa) and Plaze de la Zuda (Ra Alta) marked out this aljama which, around 1450, was enlarged with the new jewry, extending it to Plaza de Santa Mara. Partially conserved, the main synagogue, on Ra Alta, was reconstructed in 1371 after the war; a smaller synagogue and the mikve or ritual Jewish baths are also documented. The Chapterhouse archives conserve a significant collection of Hebrew codexes.

Tarazona Town Council

36

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E-mail addresses for the offices of the Network of Jewish Sites in Spain Telephone numbers for the offices of the Network of Jewish Sites in Spain
VILA BARCELONA BESALU CCERES CALAHORRA CRDOVA ESTELLA-LIZARRA GIRONA HERVS JAN LEN avila@redjuderias.org barcelona@redjuderias.org besalu@redjuderias.org caceres@redjuderias.org calahorra@redjuderias.org cordoba@redjuderias.org estella@redjuderias.org girona@redjuderias.org hervas@redjuderias.org jaen@redjuderias.org leon@redjuderias.org 920225969 934027158 972591240 927255765 941130554 957200522 948548200 972216761 927481002 953219181 987219374 MONFORTE DE LEMOS OVIEDO PALMA DE MALLORCA PLASENCIA RIBADAVIA SEGOVIA TARAZONA TOLEDO TORTOSA TUDELA monfortedelemos@redjuderias.org 982404404 oviedo@redjuderias.org 985276801 palma@redjuderias.org 971225978 plasencia@redjuderias.org 927428500 ribadavia@redjuderias.org 988471275 segovia@redjuderias.org 921466706 tarazona@redjuderias.org 976199110 toledo@redjuderias.org 925265419 tortosa@redjuderias.org 977510144 tudela@redjuderias.org 948402640

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