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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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, ...
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Basel
The Jewish presence in Basel probably dates from 1213. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between acceptance, persecution and ...
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Endingen and Lengnau
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the two villages of Endingen and Lengnau were the only ones that authorized the permanent establishment of Jews. Beginning in 1622, they resided here ...
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German-Speaking Switzerland
German-speaking Switzerland covers two-thirds of the country and accounts for 70% of its population. With cities as varied as its economic centre Zurich, the capital Berne, the watchmaking city ...
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La Chaux-de-Fonds
Founded in 1833, the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds met in a flat on rue Jaquet-Droz. Then, in 1853, a private house was used as a synagogue. From 1872, a was used in the commune of Les ...
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Lausanne
The Jewish presence in Lausanne is attested continuously from 1848 onwards, when several families met in a rented room. In 1895, the community had 41 members. In 1909, there were 110 members. It ...
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Carouge
Before Jews were able to settle in Geneva, the neighboring city of Carouge (at the time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) opened its doors to them around 1779. The sole remaining Jewish ...
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French-Speaking Switzerland
Switzerland’s French-speaking population is located in the west, in a region that covers almost a quarter of the country’s surface area. With its charming little towns along the lakes ...
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Geneva
The city of banking and watchmaking… but not only. Geneva is a much more complex city, home to a great university and eminent thinkers for centuries, and it even published one of the first two ...
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Speyer
The history of the Jews in Speyer dates back more than 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer (formerly Spira) was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Holy Roman ...
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Worms
As the cultural and municipal services proudly point out, Worms has long been a central city for many religious movements. Thus, within a small area in the heart of its old town, you will find ...
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Mainz
An ancient Roman city, Mainz is known for its university, museums and places of worship, its monuments including the Castle of the Electors, its popular festivals… But Mainz is above all ...