Spain: Toledo cemetery work halted

Both Tracing the Tribe and this blog reported on the medieval Jewish cemetery discovered during a construction project in Toledo, Spain.

According to JTA, the Spanish government ordered a freeze on the school building project on December 19, following meetings at the Spanish Foreign Ministry with representatives of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, the Conference of Spanish Rabbis, the Conference of European Rabbis and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE).

More than 100 graves have been exhumed from the building site, an expansion of a nearby state school, according to Rabbi Abraham Ginsburg, executive director of the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe.

Toledo regional authorities are currently storing more than 100 skeletons in separate boxes, Ginsburg told JTA Thursday.

‘At present our main aim is to ensure that no further desecration is taking place and we are committed by Jewish law and tradition to ensure that those graves are being preserved in their sanctified and dignified manner in perpetuity,’ Ginsburg said.

The freeze will last until January 15, 2009, although a scheduled January 12 meeting in Toledo will see Jewish organizations requesting that the freeze be extended until the matter is resolved.

A rabbinic board is consulting with international rabbinic courts to determine what can be done according to Jewish law. There are many intact graves inside the 13th century cemetery.

Barcelona: Museum hosts Jewish cemetery seminar, January 15-16

The City History Museum of Barcelona will host a two-day conference - Archaelogical Intervention on Historical Necropolises: Jewish Cemeteries - on January 15-16, 2009.

Considering the current controversy about the medieval Jewish cemetery in Toledo, this is a timely topic.

The museum's mission "is the reassessment of the historic heritage of Barcelona, whether the items are movable or immovable. In other words, the museum is responsible for the conservation, research, and dissemination of the objects and buildings that are significant for our collective history and that exemplify the city's past... the best city museum is the city itself, and that it is in its streets, squares, and buildings where we can interpret the passage of time and the interaction of the men and women that have made, throughout the centuries, today's Barcelona possible"

The seminar has been organized because artistic, historical and cultural heritage forms an asset which, following its institutional recognition and classification, is safeguarded by the public administrations.

This heritage, formed by elements and ensembles which the successive historical legacies have left in a territory,consists of very different types of cultural goods in which the respective collectives as a whole recognise themselves. In the case of the medieval Jewish legacy, Barcelona has recently opened the Barcelona Jewish Quarter Information Centre and the city also possesses an important Jewish necropolis on Montjuic hill. These are historical expressions of a period in the city's past when the Jewish community played a highly significant role.

The Jewish inheritance is a valuable legacy of Barcelona which is being added progressively to the city's visible heritage. For this reason, before acting on the necropolis of Monjuic, it is appropriate to sediment [sic] the legal and scientific arguments which will allow action to be taken there will all due rigour and the necessary sensitivity. This conference, which is open to all interested persons and which will be welcoming experts and professionals from different places in the world, proposes to analyze the vicissitudes experienced in other actions on Jewish necropolises, and then to approach the case of Barcelona from the legal and scientific standpoints.

While there is a need for such forums throughout Spain to discuss issues related to documentation, protection, preservation and presentation of Jewish heritage, I fear, however, that the views expressed by the invited experts may not reflect a representative sample of opinion. The very wording of the statement of purpose of the seminar, which sets out to examine the question of the Barcelona Jewish cemetery from a "legal and scientific" standpoints suggests that others approaches - religious, ethical, moral, historical and cultural - may get short shrift. I hope not. These approaches need to be considered as part of archaeology, too.

The seminar will prsent distinguished speakers, although the majority are by archaelogists - some of whom are on record as being dissatisfied with resolutions where human remains from medieval cemeteries have been re-interred, or those in the field of heritage site management. There is no presentation of Jewish law or tradition from a scholar or authority on Jewish burial practices to provide appropriate balance.

To read much more about the conference, my views and concerns covering religious aspects and other related Jewish cemetery issues, click here.

Spain: Toledo cemetery photographs

The Jewish Graveyard Rabbit recently posted about the ancient Jewish Cemetery in Toledo, Spain that was threatened by a school expansion project.

Rabbit has learned that a demonstration was called today in Tel Aviv, Israel in front of the Embassy of Spain at 5 Dubnow Street.

Rabbit also received photographs of the Toledo site, which appear here. For more information, click here for the Zakhor Center of Studies in Barcelona which is spearheading the fight to save the site.

Late in September the expansion of a school in Toledo caused the excavation of the ancient Jewish cemetery prior construction starts. This school and the residential complex built in the 80's, already destroyed a great part of the cemetery.

Today, besides two synagogues (of the 10 that existed at the time) which can be visited today as Museums, the ancient cemetery is the only other landmark which remains of the Jewish community which once lived there.

This community certainly deserves respect for their tradition and beliefs.

Spain: Toledo Jewish cemetery threatened

The Baltimore Jewish Times carried the JTA story about how a school expansion project is threatening 85 ancient Jewish graves in Toledo, Spain.

I have previously written about this in Tracing the Tribe and here in Rabbit following direct communication with my friends, Zachor's directors/founders Dominique Tomasov Blinder and David Stoleru.

Representatives of The Center of Studies Zachor, which protects Jewish heritage in Spain, met at the site in Toledo with the archeologist in charge of the excavation, as well as the director of landmarks in the region, to explore options to protect the site.

The construction of the school in the 1980s destroyed a large portion of the cemetery, as well as part of the Jewish quarter dating back to before the Spanish Inquisition in 1492.

“Our intention is to find a solution for the site with respect for its meaning and to avoid irreversible damage,” said David Stoleru, a Zachor director.

Officials from Atra Kadisha, an Israeli organization, traveled to Madrid last week with a delegation of American rabbis to meet with U.S. embassy officials and representatives of the Spanish Department of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey the concerns of world Jewry and the special place that Toledo holds in Spanish Jewish history.

“We believe that there is another approach to handling ancient Jewish cemeteries with respect to the tradition and with appropriate research to find more about them,” Zachor said in a news release, “so that future generations can enjoy a common heritage, can understand its meaning and can integrate it in their identity.”

Spain: Toledo's ancient cemetery in danger

Barcelona friends Dominique Tomasov Blinder and David Stoleru head the Zakhor Center, whose complete name is the Center of Studies Zakhor for the Protection and Transmission of Jewish Heritage.

Tracing the Tribe has previously written about Zakhor's establishment here.

Last week, in a phone conversation with David, he told me about the excavation of the ancient Toledo Jewish cemetery in Toldeo and that he would be visiting the city soon. the following is information sent out by Zakhor. I am waiting for an update based on Zakhor's trip to Toledo.

Late in September we learned of the expansion of a school in Toledo, which caused the excavation of the ancient Jewish cemetery prior construction. This school, built in the 1980s, already destroyed a great part of that cemetery, as well as the surrounding neighborhood.

Center of Studies ZAKHOR visited the site to meet with the archaeologist in charge and with the Director of Landmarks of the region of Castille-La Mancha, to explain the importance of this issue in Judaism and discuss the options of protection. Our intention is to find a solution for the site with respect for its meaning and to avoid irreversible damage.

This week, Atra Kadishah (Israel) traveled to Madrid together with a delegation of American rabbis, whose agenda included meetings with:

- the American Embassy, to express that this matter involves American Jewish heritage abroad, and conveying the deepest concern among American Jewry,

- the Department of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, and

- the Ambassador for Relations with the Jewish Communities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In Barcelona, the Montjuic Jewish cemetery was designated a landmark as it was a place with clear sacred character, an element evocative of the historic Jewish memory and the fact that Judaism is a living culture with its own criteria about funerary rituals and cemeteries.

Toledo is the city where the three cultures flourished in the Middle Ages reaching at times exemplary levels of convivencia, where the famous School of Translators produced great pieces which contributed to the intellectual development of the world, a city where very important Rabbis from Catalonia and from Germany chose to live.

Today, besides two synagogues (of 10 that existed in medieval times) that are today museums, the ancient cemetery is the only other landmark remaining of the Jewish community which once lived there. This community certainly deserves respect for their tradition and beliefs.

This cemetery transcends the city of Toledo, as the descendants of Jews from Toledo now live around the world. Urban growth during the last century has destroyed most of it. Today there is a small portion, with some 85 tombs (including children and babies) that is vulnerable to construction and will disappear forever if nothing is done to prevent it.

Zakhor believes that there is another approach to handle ancient Jewish cemeteries, with respect to the tradition and with appropriate research to find more about them, so that future generations can enjoy a common heritage, can understand its meaning and can integrate it in their identity.

As soon as additional information is available, this blog will report it.