Jewish Quarter

As a class we made a field trip to the Jewish Quarter in Barcelona. The Jewish Quarter in Catalan is known as Call. In Call we walked around and saw the the guilded neighborhoods with the streets named after the guilds they used to represent. Unfortunately the only Jewish remains is a less than significant synagogue hidden in a basement of an old medieval building. Although Barcelona once had a prominent Jewish community in the middle ages, today there is a limited community. The downfall of the Jews in Barcelona came with the rise of the Catholic Kings in Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. The Spanish Inquisition set out to create the ultimate Catholic Spain and Jews or Muslims were not welcome. They were given the option to either convert and assimilate into Catholicism and leave their Jewish roots and culture behind, or go into exile outside of Spain never to return. Many left the city of Barcelona and fled to Morocco and established Sephardic Judaism, while many remained in Barcelona and adhered to Catholicism, at least outside of their homes. Many Jewish families would become "crypto-Jews," or Jews who were believed to have converted, however when at home they practiced their Jewish culture and perhaps even spoke a Jewish language such as Yiddish. When we went as a class to the synagogue it was unfortunately closed and the only reminder that it was in fact a synagogue was the Mezuzah that was nailed next to the door. However I returned to the Synagogue when I knew it would be open to check it out. It's small and modest, nothing like the synagogue's back home where they are gigantic. But it was nice to know that there was still a Jewish presence in the city.