Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal

Jewish life in Barcelona dates back to at least the 8th century, verified by a responsa sent by the rabbis of Babylonia to the rabbis of Barcelona. The community produced prominent Jewish rabbis and other notable figures, including doctors and businessmen.

Life was as good as it got for the Jewish community in those times until the Spaniards got medieval on the Jews, to paraphrase Marsellus in Pulp Fiction. In 1391, there was an anti-Jewish uprising. After 1391, Barcelona’s Jewish community technically ceased to exist.

There is a similar history for the Jews of Girona, a city about an hour north of Barcelona.

The history of Jews in Girona begins in 890. That year a group of Jews sold the deed to where they used to live to Count Dela and he, as compensation, placed them in “their city of Girona.” This is the first documented reference to Jews in the city, although it is very likely that they had already been living in Girona.

Attacks on the Jewish community occurred n 1348 because of the outbreak of the plague and the accusation that Jews caused it. More attacks occurred on August 10, 1391. Nearly 40 Jews died. Many other chose to become baptized and some fled.

There were nearly 800 Jews in Girona before 1391. After the attack, the number of Jews in the community did not exceed 400. In 1449, only 200 Jews were left in this once-vibrant community. There were only 20 Jewish families left in July 1492 when the expulsion order arrived. Half of these families converted to Christianity. As new Christians, they remained in Girona.

Much of this history of Spanish Jewry comes from guidebooks I purchased in the former Major Synagogue of Barcelona and Girona’s Jewish museum.


Barcelona's Gothic Quarter

The Major Synagogue, in the Jewish Quarter of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, is one of four that once existed in the city and the only one that has been recovered and restored. It’s tiny, 40 by 20 feet, but its impact is large and humbling. Its history seeped out of its stone walls – the synagogue has foundations that date to the 13th century.

In the space I was awed by the history, comforted by the familiarity of being in a synagogue and the attendant ritual objects, and also troubled, knowing that the community that prayed here endured expulsion and suffering of the worst sort for no reason other than being Jewish.

I asked Andreas, an affable young man who wore a yarmulke, and who worked at the Major Synagogue, how many Jews currently lived in Barcelona, which has four synagogues, categorized by him as: one Lubavitch, two Reform, and one Orthodox.

Andreas said there were approximately 6,000 Jews in Barcelona. I asked if these were Jews who had converted and remained in Spain and re-emerged when it was safe again to practice Judaism.

His answer was no, that they are like the Jews in America, all coming from someplace else.

Old District of Girona

The Museum of the History of Jewish People in Girona is tucked in the Old District of the city, and its Jewish Quarter. It is a charming three-story museum with displays about the history of medieval Jewish Catalonia and of daily life of Jews in Girona in the Middle Ages. It also includes information about the synagogues and cemetery of Girona, and has an exhibition of tombstones with Hebrew epitaphs from the 12th to 14th centuries. I left with a real sense of what Jewish life was like in Girona and with an appreciation for the city fathers and most likely members of the local Jewish community who created the museum.

I asked the women who worked at the admission desk how many Jews now lived in Girona. None, they replied. So much for assistance from members of the local Jewish community.

Barcelona and Girona also had another similarity. Both had "Montjuics," which translates roughly as Mountain of the Jews, and where the communities formerly had cemeteries. I didn’t make it to the one in Girona; I’m not sure if there is even recognition there of what the site once held. There barely was recognition on Montjuic in Barcelona.

Montjuic is enormous and Barcelona’s biggest recreation area. Among its many attractions are the National Palace, the main building of the 1929 International Exhibition; Olympic Stadium, built for the 1936 Olympics and renovated for the 1992 Games; and Montjuic Castle, an 18th century castle with wonderful views of the city and the Mediterranean.

View of the Mediterranean from Montjuic Castle

The castle also has a few small galleries devoted to the military and battles, and a display of cannons that ring the courtyard, all mentioned at the admission area. There is also a small gallery in the castle with recovered Jewish tombstones that once lay undisturbed on the mountain. Curiously, it wasn’t mentioned in any of the information about the mountain at the entrance. Could this reflect an ambivalence Spain still feels toward Jews? Someone had the aspiration and energy to dig out and retrieve the tombstones from wherever they were recovered from, but no one had the desire to give even cursory attention to promoting the display.

Tombstone relic from gallery on Montjuic

It made me think that Andreas, who worked at the Major Synagogue in Barcelona, was only partially right when he said the new Jews of Spain were like the Jews of America, all having arrived from another country.

The Jews of America were never kicked out of this country. Jews here have certainly experienced discrimination in America, but obviously never to the extent that they faced it in Spain. This country has always been a haven, a land of opportunity, for Jews since they first arrived here.

And guess what? Many of the first Jews to arrive in what was to become America had their origins in Spain. Expelled from Spain during the Inquisition, these Jews made their way to the Netherlands, Brazil, England, Germany and other countries before arriving in the colonies. In 1654 a group of23 Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. There has been a continuous American Jewish presence here since then.

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My mom grew up in a small town in upstate New York, Watertown. But no matter where she traveled to, she’d always meet someone who knew someone she knew. It was uncanny. She’d be on a helicopter flying to a remote spot in Alaska with six other passengers and, inevitably, the son of one of them was the college roommate of the next-door-neighbor of her aunt Bessie from Utica.

It is fun, though, rare as it is for me, to run into a friend, an acquaintance, a familiar face, when traveling. But that’s what happened, on the rooftop of Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Mila in Barcelona. He was working on a film, so we really couldn’t chat. Maybe once he’s back in the states....

Goodbye, Columbus/Hello, Columbus

On the one hand, it’s depressing to find out how much history I don’t know. On the other hand, it’s somewhat understandable given there has been a lot of it through the years, and it’s hard to keep up.

Not only am I ignorant about a lot of history, some of the basic, common facts of history, facts that I know are right because, well, because that’s what I’ve been told all my life are, well, wrong.

Such as, Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America. He never made it to the mainland. He made it to the Bahamas and Cuba. But never America, on any of his three voyages.

How could I grow up not knowing that? Or, rather, why was I taught incorrect information all my life? For that matter, why is Columbus Day still celebrated?

And, if Columbus didn’t discover America, who did? Some say it was the Vikings, others claim it was another Central Conference team, perhaps the Packers.

Sheet music, If Columbus Would Not Have Found This Land by
Sam Lowenirth (J. and J. Kammen Music Publishers and Distributors,
Brooklyn, New York, 1925). Collection of the National Museum of
American Jewish History, Philadelphia. Gift of Sondra Katz.

What else do I have wrong about American history? World history?

I’ve been told, and I’m 99 percent certain it’s true, that Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492 (coincidentally the year Columbus left on his first voyage, aided with nautical tables perfected by Abraham Zacuto, a Jew forced to leave his native Spain).

I’ve heard that, as a consequence of the Spanish Inquisition, there is no longer any Jewish life in Spain. Is that right? Is that another fact of history I’ve come to have, not supported by reality?

I hope to find out if that is true with a little inquisition of my own. Jewish, etc. is going to Spain, so I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks. When I return I’ll write about what I learned about Spanish Jewry, and then it’s back to American Jewish life.

The Mall Beckons

We are building our new Museum at 5th and Market streets on Independence Mall, at a site that is the former home of KYW radio and television stations. The KYW building is pictured below; the photograph is by Jeff Holder, who will be documenting the building’s demolition and the construction of the new Museum. I’ll be periodically posting his photos.


When completed, the new Museum will look like this. At night, of course.

It’s a beautifully designed building. Even if it wasn’t, almost anything would have brightened up a drab corner on one of the most important intersections in Philadelphia, if not the country. That may sound a bit grandiose, but it’s true. A block south of the new Museum site is Independence Hall. Directly across from the new Museum is the Liberty Bell Complex. Two blocks away is the National Constitution Center.

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Two of the greatest symbols of American democracy, and the Museum will be sharing Independence Mall with them (along with a hot dog vendor or two – God, I love democracy!)

But the Museum has a greater mandate than to be just a pretty building. Our core exhibition now being designed will tell the story of more than 350 years of Jewish life in America. The Museum exhibition will demonstrate how Jews – and other ethnic groups – benefited from the freedoms pledged on the Mall by the Founding Fathers.

I’ll be discussing more in future posts about the contents of the core exhibition and how we intend to tell the story of the American Jewish experience. In any case, we’ll find out if we are successful on July 4, 2010. That’s when the opening is planned. Hope you can make it.