‘My grandmother lit candles like these on a Friday and had no idea why,” says Antonio Gomez, pausing before a typical Shabbat tableau in Granada’s Palacio de los Olvidados. And pointing out a ram’s horn from another town in Andalucia, he adds: “They blow this during Holy Week — but they have no idea why.”
Sephardic heritage buffs visiting the Palacio, now a museum commemorating Jews who left during the Spanish inquisition, could give them a fair idea.
Catholics who follow Jewish traditions for which they have long forgotten the explanation almost certainly had ancestors who were “conversos” — Jews forced by Spanish zealots to convert to Christianity in the late 15th century or get out.
While 100,000 fled, thousands of others converted while covertly hanging on to their faith; tales of lighting candles behind the closed doors of corner cupboards are not unknown.
All but a handful of synagogues disappeared in the wake of the Inquisition, but fresh discoveries of Sephardic sites including mediaeval mikvaot and cemeteries are being made all the time, and Andalucia, the largest and southernmost province of Spain — currently sizzling in record temperatures—is where Jewish life preceded the arrival of the Arabs by half a millennium, is a rich source of finds.
Now Manni Coe, a Brit based in the area who discovered his own Jewish heritage as an adult, has created a tour of the most significant finds and the richly cultural cities in which they lie.
Granada, whose name used to be Garnata al Yahud — or “Pomegranate of the Jews” — is a logical first stop to get a taste of his planned Sephardic Heritage tour. It’s home to the Alhambra, the Moorish fortress where Jews providing valued services lived close to their Arab employers in the elite hilltop compound above the city.
One even made it into arguably the world’s most beautiful palace. Isaac Abravanel, finance minister to Ferdinand and Isabella, was granted permission to stay in Spain with his family and wealth, although he ultimately fled the country
The tour of Spain’s most popular visitor attraction, whose unforgettable high-ceilinged halls are decorated with exquisite tiles and carvings, shady flower gardens reflected in still pools, is followed by a visit to the old Jewish quarter and the Palacio museum with its 500-year-old artefacts.
Without a guide it could be hard to find, given that it has taken in a collection of torture instruments and rebranded itself as an Inquisition museum. But the artefacts pertaining to the Jews are priceless, not to mention the information — who knew Torquemada himsel, the first Grand Inquisitor, came from a family of conversos?
The ground-floor stage, one of many in the city where authentic flamenco is regularly performed, sometimes hosts performances of Ladino music which, like the Judeo-Espanol language — the Sephardic equivalent of Yiddish— has been kept alive for centuries.
A whole troupe of Sephardic musicians is employed by the Casa Sefarad in Cordoba, owned by non-Jewish historian Sebastian de la Obra, who sings his narrative while guiding tours.
“I perform ditties about food in the area where it was prepared and sing religious songs in the synagogue room,” he says, showing us the upstairs chamber complete with Torah locked in an ark where the city’s few remaining Jews occasionally hold services. The actual synagogue opposite, one of Spain’s oldest, is currently closed for further excavations.
There are many reasons to visit Cordoba, quite apart from the beauty of its whitewashed buildings and flower-filled patios. It was the birthplace of Maimonides, although the Jewish philosopher lived north of the neighbourhood whose streets are marked by the brass plaque reserved for Spain’s authentic Jewish quarters.
The city is also home to the astonishing Mezquita, one of the world’s largest mosques, which in true Spanish reconquest style now houses an elaborate church in the middle, but most of whose beautiful, dramatic arches remain intact.
A surprise is that some of the stonemasons who created this architectural wonder were Jewish, proudly pronouncing their heritage by carving a Star of David alongside their maker’s signatures, which are displayed inside the building.
Cordoba boasts a lovely boutique hotel built around several courtyards in the Jewish quarter itself, Las Casas de la Juderia. Nearby, you’ll find the Sephardic restaurant Casa Mazal, serving traditional Judeo-Spanish dishes such as artichokes braised in olive oil alongside newfangled fare like beetroot-flavoured hummus, all to the accompaniment of live guitar music in the courtyard during the evenings.
There are more Sephardic dishes in a restaurant in nearby Lucena, the former Jewish city of Eliossana which sprang up when the Arabs objected to the expansion of Cordoba’s overflowing Jewish quarter.
Here, an ancient Jewish necropolis with 380 tombs facing towards Jerusalem was unearthed in 2003 outside modern Lucena; a 1,000-year-old headstone carved with Jewish characters is displayed in the town’s museum.
Stars of David are also appearing on menus in the Renaissance town of Ubeda to denote Sephardic recipes which have been added by one of the town’s better restaurants.
Here, while converting a corner site into new apartments, the developers unearthed a bricked-up mediaeval mikve and above it a synagogue, identified by the discovery of arches and a women’s gallery on a mezzanine.
Now the development plans have been abandoned and the Sinagoga del Agua, named for seven wells found on the site, has become another Sephardic heritage site administered by non-Jews.
After a stay at the beautiful five-star Palacio de Ubeda hotel, the trip ends in Seville. Few sites of significance remain in its attractive former Jewish quarter, but you can still spy an authentic tomb through a window in an underground car park.
It’s something of a contrast to our starting point of Malaga, where in the centre of the old town, Sephardic life is returning to Andalucia after 500 years, in the form of a new heritage and community centre.
The fact the site was provided by a city whose Jewish population is starting to return from the North African diaspora seems fitting at a time when all Sephardic Jews who can prove their origins are being invited back to live in Spain.
After all, as the tour reminds us, this country was once home to one of the most populous and productive Jewish civilisations in the world.
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