Spain revives Jewish past

Press, 12 September 1984, Page 28

Spain revives Jewish past

By

JUDITH MATLOFF

of Reuters through NZPA Madrid

Nearly 500 years after expelling almost its entire Jewish population, Spain is encouraging Jews to return to explore their ancient roots.

The Tourism Ministry has launched a promotion of Spain’s medieval Jewish quarters and synagogues which spawned a golden age of Jewish thought.

“Spain has a very rich Jewish past,” says Mr Geraldo Gonzalez of the Ministry. “Many Jews, especially in the United States, are very interested in discovering it.” The campaign includes a glossy pamphlet translated into 14 languages which recalls the days when Jews were tried and burned for heresy after Spain’s Catholic monarchs began the Inquisition in 1478.

The booklet also points out sites of brighter Jewish history in the cities of Barcelona, Seville, Granada, and Cordoba, where Jewish bankers, diplomats,, and philosophers led thriving communities between the tenth and fourteenth.

In the fortress city of Toledo, once called the Jerusalem of Spain for being the centre of Jewish learning, are El Transito and Santa Maria la Blanca, two of Spain’s finest medie-

val synagogues which are graceful examples of Moorish architecture. Ancient Hebrew phrases carved on the walls of El Transito, now a museum of Sephardic (Iberian Jewish) culture, have outlived the time when the Jewish temple was converted into a Christian church. For a contrast, tourism officials point to the lush resort island of Majorcahome of the tiny Chueta community which has practised old Jewish rites for centuries. Scholars believe the Chuetas, who have forgotten where the customs came from and also practise Catholicism, are descendants of Jews converted in the fifteenth century. Thousands of Jews converted to Catholicism in 1492, when Spain’s rulers Ferdinand and Isabella declared the Edict of Expulsion, under which thousands of others fled the country. Mr Gonzalez said the bid to draw Jewish visitors from abroad was linked to efforts to diversify tourism and attract holidaymakers to inland towns away from packed beaches. Plans are under way for a 22-million peseta (224,000) campaign in New York to entice American Jews to discover their heritage in Spain. Mr Samuel Toledano, a leader of Spain’s 12,000member Jewish community,

sees the Ministry’s drive as reflecting a growing awareness of Jewish culture in Spain. “There has been a trend by Spaniards to see the Jewish heritage here as their own and view Jewish thinkers as universal ones, not just Hebrew theologians,” he said.

One such figure was the medieval philosopher and physician; Moses Maimonides, the 850th anniversary of whose birth will be celebrated in 1985 in his adopted city of Cordoba. Mr Bert Schader, another local Jewish leader, says one topic sparking debate on Spanish Jewry has been speculation over the possible Jewish origins of the late dictator, Francisco Franco, who shared his surname with many Jews expelled from France. Some Sephardic experts advance the theory that Franco, who was sympathetic to Nazi Germany, may have allowed thousands of Jews to take refuge in Spain, and lifted the expulsion edict in 1967 because of Jewish ancestry. Spain has nevertheless become much more open to Jews since Franco’s death in 1975. Franco favoured Roman Catholicism by continuing subsidies and by denying equal civil, property, and tax rights to minority groups such as Protestants and Jews.