Community
As a part of contextualizing memory with the present, it is important to look at the living communities, representatives, and initiatives that are a testament to the livelihood of Judaism in Spain. Below are a few examples of the living community work in Barcelona and Girona
Comunidad Israelita de barcelona-la cib
I had the honor, during my time in Barcelona, to meet with Director Daniel Barchilon of la Comunidad Israelita de Barcelona (La CIB), the largest synagogue and Jewish community in Barcelona. Today, the synagogue hosts over 600 families with both a traditional Sephardic service and an Ashkenazi one upstairs. Services are held three times a day every day and the synagogue likewise offers a kosher supermarket below and facilities for Jewish education and programming. My experience getting to La CIB, unlike American synagogue entry, was extremely difficult. I had to show my passport at various instances (via email and in person) for security reasons and answer questions about my Jewish heritage. This is standard for many synagogues in Spain and a Jewish person cannot simply walk in for services as we do in America. It is definitely a difficult reality to contend with as I have been used to the openness of most worship places in the States and was not expecting such adversity when trying to reach a Sephardic synagogue as a Sephardic Jew. However, Sr. Barchilon was immensely welcoming to me and my questions once I arrived (after a very long metro ride and walk away from the Jewish quarter where I was staying). Certainly, places like La CIB are a complete contrast to the Jewish quarter where the Jewish community feels antiquated and archaeological. Sr. Barchilon mentioned collaborations even with Casa Adret and reaching out to more cultural initiatives. I was surprised to find out the size of the community and their activity in Barcelona. For them, there seems to be a commitment to doing what Jews have always done and keeping the traditions going.
casa adret-barcelona
Casa Adret, which sits at 6 Carrer de Shlomo Ben Adret, houses various Jewish cultural initiatives held under the umbrella of the historical home. The house once belonged to the great Rabbi Shlomo Ben Adret and the historical bones of the home are well kept and overlaid by the modern architecture which now sits on top. I met with Victor Sorrensen who is the co-founder of Mozaika, a magazine that discusses Jewish contemporary issues. The magazine was originally catered to non-Jewish audiences who have been deprived of a modern view of the Jewish people beyond the mysticism of medieval Jewry. Victor is currently the director of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ). AEPJ is a network of institution of Jewish heritage and cultural projects all over Europe. As a director of such big heritage organizations, he emphasized how he wants Casa Adret to be a bridge between academia, heritage organizations, different cultural groups, and the Jewish community. While there are many narratives promoted by local municipalities and tourism about Jews, he wants the initiatives at Casa Adret to create some "authenticity and rigor not just connected to the past but with a certain approach to the present and future."
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view of Carrer of Shlomo Ben Adret
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door entrance of Casa Adret
Other initiatives under Casa Adret include Sephardic Gastronomic Experiences provided by Eatwith.com, Salaam Shalom, Toldot Tours, and a Jewish Book Festival. Casa Adret also is becoming a training center for tour guides where they could receive some rigor and structures about Jewish people's history in a climate where it has often been misconstrued. Along with these more established programs, Mozaika works to collaborate with non-Jewish entities for projects including most recently at the Cathedral of Barcelona to create a classification of the church's archives for Jewish medieval life. I was invited to the inauguration a week before the exhibit opened to the public, and you can read more about that event on this page. Most importantly, it seems that Casa Adret's initiatives are molded by their emphasis on cooperation with other existing entities, whether Jewish or not. According to Victor, the events at the center have had successful attendance since the pandemic's height and seem to attract an audience composed of both local Jews and curious non-Jews from Barcelona. This approach to cultural understanding is certainly unique in the Spanish context and comes with its local political challenges and tug of wars with municipalities and other collaborating bodies. To learn more about the events, initiatives, and work done at Casa Adret please visit mozaika.es.
“The task of remembering makes everyone his own historian.”
-Pierre Nora from Les Lieux de Memoires
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Jewish Call of Girona
leah stoch-girona
Leah Stoch is a Canadian corporate learning and development specialist and is a Jewish community member in Girona. She is perhaps the first Jewish person to live in the Call since 1492 (or at least the first to actively put up a mezuzah) and is actively aware of all things Jewish heritage and community. I was able to connect with Leah over zoom and in person in Girona where we were able to discuss the struggles of being represented as Jews by Spanish heritage institutions. She is perhaps known as a righteous troublemaker who will politely raise concerns as to the misrepresentation of Jews by Spanish patrimony and heritage institutions. We discussed various problematic instances that although rarely malicious result in the antisemitic and ignorant portrayal of Jews. For example, she noted a story time for children hosted by the Jewish Museum in which the storyteller told stories about money and Satan as a form of Jewish storytelling. She has likewise been banned from commenting on the the Red de Juderias web page for pointing out the inherent flaw in referring to a 12th century synagogue in Toledo as Sinagoga de Santa Maria la Blanca (its previous name as a church) despite its current naming as Sinagoga Ben Shushan. The organization, in their annual short story competition, has likewise recognized a blatantly antisemitic story (translation courtesy of Leah) as the second place winner in 2021. In addition, Red de Juderias, in their Jewish cookbook, has highlighted a recipe for Matzah which is "enhanced" with yeast (perhaps the only ingredient that would make it not kosher for Passover). These somewhat perpetual acts of ignorance are only the start of a concerningly long list.
Certainly, Leah's fighting spirit in Girona brings up the idea that being memorialized as a people is not enough but rather, how we are memorialized makes all the difference. For too long, in Leah's opinion, the Jewish community of Spain has been either idealized through common myths or their tragedies washed out by the aseptic presentation of information. At the end of the day, much of the narrative of Jewish community's existence is held in the hands of non-Jewish actors or even worse, organizations that don't care to mold their narrative to the desires and concerns of living Jews themselves. Memory plain and simple is not enough to fully remember the complexity of a whole peoplehood. However, the contentions, nuances, and self-reflection required to create a fully comprehensive history may be difficult to attain in the highly political climate of Jewish heritage work in Spain. I look forward to learning more from Leah in the coming months as I follow up with her over Zoom and am very thankful for the great conversation I had with her.
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outlooking view from the Cathedral of Girona