Jewish Spain
As always when we travel I try and get as much Jewish
history/culture as I can. My children can tell you stories of being dragged to
the far corners of Florence and Venice to find ‘the’ synagogue or spending
hours on a Jewish tour of Rome. So Spain was no exception. We did a Jewish tour
of Seville and one in Toledo. Here are a few observations.
Although I thought I had some understanding of the Spanish
Inquisitions and Jewish lie in Spain I think I severely underestimated how
completely it wiped out all Jewish lie in Spain, even to this day. First of all
it lasted 300 years. This is even more incredible when you remember that the US
is less than 240 years old. Prior to the Inquisition Jews made up between 7%
and 15% of the populations of Seville and Toledo. Compare that to the US where Jews make up less than 2% of the
population nation wide, approximately 8% in New York and less than 3% in
Pennsylvania.
Today there are only 10,000 Jews in all of Spain, 5000 of
which live in Madrid. There are no Jews in Toledo. In Seville we were told
there are only 16 Jewish families though I was later told that was a high
estimate. There is no synagogue in Seville. Almost all traces of Jewish life
have been obliterated. All Jewish cemeteries were knocked down and the stones
reused for building. As you tour the cities you can see Jewish inscriptions on
stone blocks in the palaces, churches and homes. Although most of this occurred in the 1300 and 1400s we saw
a 3-year-old underground parking garage in Seville that had been an ancient
Jewish cemetery. Except for one small tomb enclosed in glass there was no
effort to preserve or move the site. Finding the one saved tomb is difficult as
it is blocked by someone’s reserved park
We liked Toldeo a great deal but perhaps the most
fascinating part was our tour guide. He was born and raised in from Istanbul in
a Jewish but non-observant family and only became religious when he moved to
Madrid. With only 5000 Jews in Madrid it is difficult to meet a person to
marry. So he travelled to Jerusalem to study at the yeshiva and meet with the
matchmaker recommended by the great rebbe. The matchmaker matched him with a
girl from Brazil, also from a non-religious family, who had moved to Israel to
become religious. They met for about a week, and became engaged. He was flying
to Israel after our tour for 10 days to help plan their June 21 wedding. After
the wedding she will return with him to live in Madrid. It was like seeing one
of the multiple novels we read about the Hasidim come to life!
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