Location
Seville
Seville’s Santa Cruz quarter, protected by the Alcazar, was formerly the city’s famous judería. If the English like to dine early compared to the French, they enjoy this meal at ...
Location
Córdoba
Homeland of Maimonides, Cordoba was under the Arab Caliphate of Abderahman III the greatest Andalusian juderia. Under the Muslim rule, the Jewish community lived in harmony with the conquerors, ...
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Lucena
Famed in the eleventh century for the influence of Talmudists such as Isaac ibn Gayata, Isaac Alfasi, and Joseph ibn Migas, who founded the so-called “Lucena School”, Lucena preserves ...
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Granada
Granada’s splendor was at its apogee in the eleventh century, when Samuel ha-Nagid and his son Joseph were in charge of the kingdom. The large Jewish population exceeded 5,000 and reached ...
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Andalusia
It is possible to date the presence of Jews in Andalusia to the Council of Elvira (303-09), when references were made to the need to separate Jews and Christians.
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Palma 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 ...
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The 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 ...
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Teruel
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 ...
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Aragón
In the Middle Ages, the powerful kingdom of Aragón comprised not only of Aragón itself but Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. It was home to numerous Jewish communities, especially ...
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Tortosa
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. ...
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Valls
Standing on the trading route between Lérida and Tarragona, Valls had a thriving little community that was, however, almost annihilated in the pogroms of 1391, a few Jews remaining after… ...
Location
Barcelona
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 ...
Location
Besalú
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 ...
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Gerona
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 ...
Location
Castelló 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 ...
Location
Catalonia
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: ...
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Tudela
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 ...
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Vitoria
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 ...
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Ribadavia
Probably the most interesting judería in Galicia, Ribadavia has kept its old Jewish quarter despite later urban developments. Although it is known Jews were there as far back as the tenth ...
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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 ...
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Aguilar 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 ...
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Puente 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 ...
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Amusco
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 ...
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Segovia
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 ...
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Toledo
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 ...
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Madrid
In the film A Monkey in Winter, Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo debate whether the Prado is a museum surrounded by a garden or a garden on which a museum is placed. What is certain is that the ...
Location
Castile and 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 ...
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Biel / Bienne
It was the clock-making industry that attracted Alsatian Jews to the Jura beginning in 1835. Among the great names in this industry was Achille Picard. From 1858 onwards, devout Jews met in a ...
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Bern
The Jewish presence in Bern probably dates from the 6th century. Jews are mentioned in the legal texts. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews ...
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Zurich
The Jewish presence in Zurich probably dates back to the 13th century. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between reception, ...