Cáceres had a fairly sizable Jewish presence after the Christian reconquest. In 1479, 100 married Jews were listed in a community with some 650 members. They lived in two juderías: the “old” one was on the site of today’s Casa de las Veletas, and the “new” one was around Plaza Mayor, where the Jews had most of their shops. is probably an old synagogue that was ...
Plus d'infosContenus associés au mot-clé “history”
Estremadura
It is likely the history of Spain’s Jews began in Estremadura. Vestiges from the third century bear witness to them and, according to the twelfth-century chronicler Abraham ibn Daud, the Jews that Titus deported from Jerusalem settled in this old Roman province. However, as elsewhere, there are few traces left to indicate this long presence.
Plus d'infosPalma de Mallorca
The call is clearly defined by a small square and the Carrer de la Call. It is one of Spain’s most important for the quality and richness of its houses, even if urban development work has done away with the smaller streets and blind alleys. The location of its four gates is known, but not that of its many synagogues. is traditionally the preserve of the chuetas, a community of silver ...
Plus d'infosThe Balearic Islands
There have been Jews in the Balearic Islands since the Roman occupation. After Jaume I won the islands from the Arabs, many Jews arrived from Catalonia but also the south of France and North Africa to settle the new land. After 1343, when Pedro IV of Aragón seized the islands, the Balearic Jews began to enjoy a real golden age. The leading families traded throughout the Mediterranean and with ...
Plus d'infosTeruel
Teruel became important as the supply center for Catalan-Aragónese troops sent out to conquer Valencia. The Jews here became specialized in weaving wool. The Lonja, or produce exchange, was open to both Jewish and Muslim traders. The local museum (Museo Provincial) has an interesting Hanukkah lamp made in the local green ceramic. Discovered in 1977 during an excavation in the old Jewish ...
Plus d'infosAragón
In the Middle Ages the powerful kingdom of Aragón comprised not only Aragón itself but Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. It was home to numerous Jewish communities, especially after the union with Catalonia in 1150. They had links with the Muslims, who lived here around 1500.
Plus d'infosTortosa
Tortosa was home to one of the peninsula’s oldest communities, as attested by a seventh-century headstone discovered in the nineteenth century and now on display in the cathedral cloister. Its incription is in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek and features two Stars of David and a candelabra. The community thrived under Arab rule, its illustrious sons including the grammarian Menahem ben Saruq ...
Plus d'infosValls
Standing on the trading route between Lérida and Tarragona, Valls had a thriving little community that was, however, annihilated in the pogroms of 1391. One can nonetheless visit the call, which has kept almost entirely intact its original structure and some of the old names of its streets (Carrer dels Jueus and Carrer du Call). At number 18A on the Carrer dels Jueus the patio could well have ...
Plus d'infosBarcelona
The call major, which was active between the twelfth century and the riots of 1391, is Spain’s best-preserved Jewish quarter and the easiest to visit. It comprises a small zone between the Palau de la Generalitat and the calles Banys Nous, Sant Domenec del Call, Sant Honorat, Arc de Sant Ramon del Call, Sant Sever, la Fruita, Marlet, and del Call. The synagogue was at 7 Calle de Sant ...
Plus d'infosBesalú
The presence of Jews in Besalú is attested in a document from 1229 in which Jaume I the Conqueror reserves to them the function of moneylender. In 1342 the community, hitherto linked to the one in Barcelona, became independent. In those days it numbered 200, a quarter of the total population, and lived side by side with the Christians. We have no information about 1391 and its pogroms. Not ...
Plus d'infosGerona
Gerona was the second most important community in Catalonia, both for its size (1000 men and women in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but only 100 or so in the fifteenth) and for the quality of its scholars. gerona was the home of Nahmanides, Johan ben Abraham Gerondi, Azriel of Gerona, Bonastruc da Porta, and Isaac the Blind. Jewish Gerona has been famous since 1980, when the discovery ...
Plus d'infosCastelló d’Empúries
In the fourteenth century, and up to 1492, there was a large community in Castelló d’Empúries living around the Plaza Llana, in the calles de la Judería, del San Padre, and Peixetiries Velles. There are two known cemetery sites. A tombstone found in one of them can be seen in the local museum (Museo Parroquial), while seven others have been reused in various constructions.
Plus d'infosCatalonia
The Jews settled in Catalonia in Roman times and communities began to take shape in Barcelona and Gerona in the tenth century. By the twelfth century, there were five major Jewish centers: Barcelona, Gerona, Lerida, Tortosa, and Perpignan (French Catalonia). The Jews are mentioned in Catalonia’s first legal code, Els Usatges de la Cort de Barcelona. They distinguished themselves in ...
Plus d'infosTudela
Spain > Northern Spain (Galicia, Basque Country, and Navarre)
In the fifteenth century some 15% of Tudela’s population were Jews. There were two quarters, one around the Zaragaza gate, the other within the castle walls, but nothing remains of these sizable communities. Visitors can, however, go to the Ribotas landing stage at the confluence of the Ebro and Merchando, where Benjamin de Tudela set off on his long journey. Benjamin de Tudela In the ...
Plus d'infosVitoria
Spain > Northern Spain (Galicia, Basque Country, and Navarre)
The town of Vitoria had 300 Jews in 1290 and 900 on the eve of the expulsion -the equivalent of 6 or 7% of the total population. Their main activities were tax collecting and medicine. In 1492 they took refuge in Bayonne across the French border, where, even today, the Jews think of themselves as the descendants of those in Vitoria. The most surprising vestige of the Jewish presence is the ...
Plus d'infosRibadavia
Spain > Northern Spain (Galicia, Basque Country, and Navarre)
Probably the most interesting judería in Galicia, Ribadavia has kept its old Jewish quarter despite later urban developments. Although it is known Jews were her as far back as the tenth century, few documents about the life of their community remain. The old synagogue is the building with crests on its facade in the Calle Merelles, which runs between the Plaza Mayor and Plaza de la Madalena. ...
Plus d'infosNorthern Spain (Galicia, Basque Country, and Navarre)
The historical province of Navarre, straddling the Spanish-French border, was violently disputed by the Castilians and counts of Champagne. It was also where Jews from Arab Spain came together with those of Castile and France to take advantage of the famous pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and thus contribute to its commercial prosperity. The important center of Nájera gave its name ...
Plus d'infosAguilar de Campó
The earliest mention of Jewish shopkeepers in Aguilar de Campó, situated along the trading route toward the port of Cantabria, is from 1188. A Hebrew inscription can still be seen under the town’s coat of arms on the old door of the Reinosa. It tells that on 1 June 1380 work on building the door began, paid for by Don Caq (Isaac) ben Malak and his wife Bellida. The text is in Hebrew and ...
Plus d'infosPuente Castro (León)
A small jewish community lived in Puente Castro until the twelfth century. It disappeared during the wars between Castile and León. The cemetery has yielded more than a dozen magnificent tombstones. Three of them have been on permanent loan at Toledo’s Sephardic Museum since 1969, and a fourth can be seen at the diocesan museum in León. A fifth one, at the Archaeological Museum of León ...
Plus d'infosAmusco
The village of Amusco is known to have had a community of some 300 Jews in the fifteenth century. The old synagogue is still here, surprisingly positioned on the village square next to the church and village hall; it is now the Synagogue Café (Café de la Sinagoga). The medieval synagogue was at basement level. Its powerful vaults are supported by six arches. Its design is not surprising since ...
Plus d'infosSegovia
Segovia was home to one of the biggest communities in the Kingdom of Castile. It produced important figures like Abraham Senior and his son-in-law Meyer Melamed, who served the Catholic monarchs up to 1492. Segovia also saw a violent anti-Jewish movement under the influence of the Santa Cruz convent and subsequently as a result of the “Holy Innocent Child” affair at La Guardia. It ...
Plus d'infosToledo
The “Sephardic Jerusalem” is known around the world for the beauty of its synagogues and its Jewish quarter. The memory of the community has remained vivid in Toledo; historians have from the thirteenth and fourteenth century onward been able to supply fairly precise information about the location and history of the city’s Jewish community. Toledo is a city of great ...
Plus d'infosMadrid
We know that from the tenth century onward there was a small Jewish community in Muslim-ruled Madrid. This grew considerably after the reconquest. Though hit hard by the pogroms of 1391, it was slowly built up again. It is also known that Jewish doctors such as Rabbi Jacob were, under the king’s protections, allowed to live outside the Jewish quarter, the better to tend to the sick. In ...
Plus d'infosCastile-La Mancha / Castile-León
The presence of Jews in Castile and León is attested as far back as the tenth century. Over the centuries that followed the rulers granted the Jews the same rights and duties as of the Christians. The rulers considered the Jews their personal property and, throughout the period of reconquest, the community helped with the administrative and commercial organization of the conquered ...
Plus d'infosLiège
It’s hard to find a trace of Jewish life in Liège and its area before the end of the 18th century. In 1811, only 24 Jews are registered there, and only 20 to 30 families at the end of the century. In 1914 the community, comprising Dutch and Alsatian Jews, was swollen by Russian Jews who had been taking prisoners by the Germans. Some of them settled in Liège from 1917. The international ...
Plus d'infosGhent
The first communities were established in Ghent in the thirteenth century. After the Jews’ expulsion, there was no trace of a Jewish presence until the eighteenth century. The reputation of Ghent’s university attracted many Romanian and Russian Jews, who formed the famous “generation of engineers”. During World War II, the solidarity of their non-Jewish fellow citizens ...
Plus d'infosAntwerp
The last real shtetl in western Europe, Antwerp is known for its Orthodox Jews and its diamonds industry. Barely twenty years ago, approximately 80% of Antwerp’s Jewish population used to make a living from the diamond industry. More than half of the world production of diamonds passed through these few streets near Centraal Station. The diamond centers, which can be visited, also ...
Plus d'infosManchester
With 30000 Jews, Manchester has the highest Jewish population in Great Britain after London. Ashkenazic and Sephardic immigrants came here between 1883 and 1905. Many of the Oriental Jews were drawn by the cotton industry, which processed the raw material from North America. The city still has about forty synagogues. The is housed in a Spanish and Portuguese-rite synagogue dating from 1874 ...
Plus d'infosBordeaux
For three centuries, the cellars of tumbledown houses in the old town were home to a hidden Jewish community, that of the conversos who came here from Spain after 1474. Used to hiding their faith in Spain, these “new Christians” continued to practice their old religion in secret when they came to France. Bordeaux’s Jewish community began to emerge from the shadows only in ...
Plus d'infosBayonne
On the day of tishah b’ab -the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem- the old synagogue resounds to these words in Spanish: “Hemos perdido Sion pero tambien hemos perdido. España tierra de consolacion” (We have lost Zion, but we have also lost Spain, land of consolation”). was built in 1837, but its Holy Ark, kept from the earlier place of ...
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