Jewish Toledo

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Toledo, capital of Sefarad, Jerusalem of the west, remains in the collective memory of the people who once populated the streets. There are only two synagogues that actually remain in the Jewish Quarter, where there was supposedly the biggest concentration of the Hebrew population in Toledo, even though in reality there came to be a total of 10 synagogues spread across the city.

Here we can find the Jewish Gate from the 12th Century, at the beginning of which existed the remains of houses of mikeves, ritual baths in their basements.

The Jewish Quarter of Toledo has the two most important synagogues from the medieval age in the Iberian Peninsula. The Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca from the beginning of the 13th century, consisting of five naves separated by horseshoe arcs with plasterwork and octagonal pillars. And the Synagogue of Tránsito constructed in 1366, by Samuel Ha-Leví, the big prayer room and the women’s gallery, decorated with plasterwork and paneling. Today it houses the Museum of the Jewish History of Spain, with objects of worship and Sephardic tradition. In the garden of this museum we can enjoy an innovative installation: the gar-

GUÍA TURÍSTICA

den of the memory. The Sonorous garden of memory consists of a sound installation that recreates the sounds of life in the streets of the old Jewish Quarter of Toledo, with voices in Ladino, domestic sounds and a Sephardic melody, to help us to relive the experience of walking through the Jewish Quarter of Toledo during the 14th or 15th centuries. •••