From the Royal Palace to the Prado, with all the other places in between, telling the story of this splendid capital, Jewish history is also one of the centers of interest for many tourists today. Here’s our interview with Natalia Cogut, Director of Communications of the Jewish Community of Madrid.
Jguideeurope: What are the CJM’s missions?
Natalia Cogut: Our mission is to ensure, promote and protect the knowledge and practice of Jewish values, religion and identity. To defend, represent and promote the interests of the Community and its members, both individually and collectively. Also, to strengthen the identity and ties with the State of Israel, intensifying the study and dissemination of its political, social, cultural, economic and religious reality, as well as promoting Aliyah. And, of course, promote harmonious coexistence with the whole society, through mutual respect and the dissemination of Jewish culture and tradition within local society.
Which cultural events related to Jewish heritage will be organized by the CJM in 2024-5?
The program for the coming year has usually two components. One that repeats itself on a monthly basis with activities as a class based on a different chapter of a chosen book of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a book club that covers Jewish and Israeli authors, a visit to an exhibit or a movie that is connected to something Jewish (either the theme of the exhibit itself or the artist), an activity related to the Jewish holiday of that month. The second part usually depends on the availability of a historian, author, journalist or politician who could give us a conference on a specific subject.
Have you perceived an evolution recently in the interest towards Spanish Jewish heritage?
We have perceived an interest towards Spanish Jewish heritage, and in order to fulfil it, we organize during the year some activities with Centro Sefarad Israel (https://www.sefarad-israel.es/)
Are there places linked to Madrid’s Jewish heritage which you think deserves to be better known?
Visitor Center of the Jewish Community of Madrid
The permanent exhibition that is exhibited in the Visitor Center of the Jewish Community of Madrid invites the visitor to a journey through the contemporary history of the presence of Jewish life in Madrid, from its beginnings to the present day, through photographs, images, images and graphic elements and ritual objects. To make a visit it is necessary to write to info@cjmadrid.org
Monument to the victims of the Holocaust
The monument was inaugurated in 2007 as a result of the agreement signed in 2005 between the City Council and the Jewish Community of Madrid. It is located in the Juan Carlos I Park in Madrid, next to the Garden of the Three Cultures (symbol of the coexistence in Spain of the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim civilizations). The monument is the work of the Jewish sculptor of Sephardic origin Samuel Nahón, with the collaboration of the architect Alberto Stisin. The central motif of the set is a vertical projection of the Star of David found on a platform covered with railway sleepers, as a symbolic allusion to the “death trains” in which the victims were taken to the death camps. The set is completed by the schematic figure of a father with his son in his arms, and a group of sleepers nailed to the ground in an upright position.