VACATION STORY

DEAR COLLEAGUES, AS A XMAS PRESENT HERE IS THE STORY HAPPENED IN TARAZONA...

(Tarazona is an elegant medieval city, one hour drive from Zaragoza. One of
the characters of this story, archeologist & historian Javier Bona to whom
I could talk about the FIS project, offers local help and some modest
financing for a "real" FIS venue in beautiful Tarazona, whenever we wish:
2003, 2004...)

Merry Christmas to all. ---Pedro

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more info about this Tarazona story in:
http://www.lanzadera.com/moshedeportella
http://idd00bmy.eresmas.net/iindex2.html

                     Rescuing A Corner Of The Past
          Walter Ruby - Special To The Jewish Week (March 16, 2001)

One day in the summer of 2000, an archivist in the magnificent medieval
cathedral of the northern Spanish town of Tarazona found that the cover of a
14th-century book in the church's collection of manuscripts had been ripped.
Examining the book closely, he discovered that inside the cover was an
until-then undetected document written in Hebrew that had apparently been
inserted into the cover hundreds of years ago to help hold the book
together. The Hebrew text was a synagogue document from Tarazona's long-lost
Jewish community, which like the rest of Spanish Jewry, was expelled from
the country in 1492. Excited by the discovery, the archivist informed
Javier Bona, a local archaeologist who only months earlier had created an
organization known as The Association of the Friends of Jewish Culture-Moshe
De Portella, named for a Jew from Tarazona who was a legendary financier for
the King of Aragon during the 13th century. Spurred on by Bona, a team of
archivists peeled back the covers of a number of other venerable volumes
preserved in the cathedral, and found to their great excitement that these
books too had been held together by inserting inside their covers Jewish
documents which obviously had been confiscated by the local Catholic Church.
In the months since, the archivists have discovered some 60 of these
medieval Hebrew documents; an assortment of legal deeds and religious
writings, including one that is written in Arabic with Hebrew lettering.
These unique documents are proving invaluable to Bona and other members of
his association in fleshing out the life of the long-disappeared Jewish
community of the town. Mention the glory of Spanish Jewry in the days
before the Inquisition and what comes immediately to mind are the southern
cities of Cordoba and Granada, where giants of Jewish history like Moses
Maimonides and Yehuda Halevi lived and wrote, and where highly literate
Jewish communities helped the Muslim leaders of Spain create a glorious
civilization at a time when Christian Europe was slumbering in the Dark
Ages. Another city where Jewish life flourished before the Inquisition is
Toledo, the beautiful former capital of Castille, located near Madrid in
central Spain, which, like Cordoba and Granada, is today much visited by
Jewish tourists from around the world. But until now, there has been
almost no awareness in the Jewish world of the Judaic legacy of Tarazona and
other ancient towns in the northern kingdom of Aragon, whose King Ferdinand
married Castilian Queen Isabella and united their kingdoms to form modern
Spain. That ignorance and neglect are expected to come to an end this
summer when Tarazona, a gemlike medieval town of 12,000 set on a verdant
plain below towering Mt. Moncayo about halfway between the Mediterranean and
the Atlantic, hosts a festival called "The Return of Sepharad to Tarazona.
The festival, to be held on July 27-28, will be attended by the Israeli
ambassador to Spain, Aragonese and Spanish government officials and Jewish
dignitaries from around the world. The two-day event will feature an
exhibition of the recently discovered Hebrew manuscripts of the town at the
venerable palace of the bishop of the city; the presentation of a new book
on the history of Tarazona Jewry; a celebration of the cuisine of the Jews
of Spain and a concert featuring medieval Sephardic music. (For more
information check the website, http://portella.pvirt.com.) There will also
be walking tours of the Juderia (Jewish Quarter), an area of the old town
which has retained its name among the local population even though there
have been no Jews living there in 500 years. Expected to take part in the
festivities will be Israeli and Palestinian children who will attend a peace
camp in the town this summer under the auspices of the government of Aragon
and Encounter, an on-line community for Jewish-Arab reconciliation. The
Jewish renaissance in Tarazona is likely to prove only the tip of the
iceberg in a coming revival of interest in and knowledge about the long
forgotten Jews of Aragon. According to Bona, "Like Tarazona, virtually every
old city in Aragon has a Juderia, but until recently, no one seemed to care
who those Jews had been and what their lives had been like. We were
motivated to investigate the story of the Jews of Tarazona not simply out of
academic interest, but from a conviction that it is time to do justice,
however late, to Sepharad by recovering the memory of the Jews of Tarazona.
We must rescue a corner of the past for our common future." Bona said
there is evidence of Jewish life in Tarazona and neighboring towns going
back to Roman times. He noted that the Jews of Tarazona had a close
relationship with the kings and queens of Aragon, going back to Moshe De
Portella in the 13th century, who was the equivalent of the Rothschilds in
his era. Around 1370, after Tarazona had nearly been destroyed in a ruinous
war between Castille and Aragon, the Jews of Tarazona financed the
rebuilding of the city's walls. When a massive pogrom against the Jews swept
across Spain in 1391, Tarazona was the only town in which the mayor issued
an edict - the text of which still can be found in the municipal archives -
promising stern punishment against anyone who committed violence against
Jews. The Jewish community of Tarazona remained intact until 1492, when
after the union of Castile and Aragon, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Visitors to the Juderia
today will find a rabbit's warren of narrow alleys and Spanish and Moorish
style buildings, most of them still lived in, which has changed little with
the passage of centuries. Several of the buildings, which are built on top
of natural rock formations, are known as the "hanging houses." Below them
are caves, which also evidently served as rooms in the homes of residents of
the Jewish Quarter. In the past year, through use of old maps and documents
discovered in the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace, Bona has managed to
figure out the function of many of these buildings during the 13th and 14th
century when the Juderia was at its height. In the center of the quarter
is a large ruined dwelling that retains an ornate door from medieval times,
which apparently served as a Talmud Torah, which has clear evidence of a
mikveh in the basement. Bona said that the Association of the Friends of
Jewish Culture of Tarazona is now looking for the funding necessary to do a
full restoration of this house, in which it plans to place a museum devoted
to the life of the Jews of Tarazona. Nearby are buildings that have been
identified by Bona as a synagogue and a butcher shop. The Juderia is a
three-minute walk from Tarazona's ornate city hall, which has a magnificent
frieze on its exterior depicting the coronation of Emperor Charles V of
Spain and Germany during the 16th century. The Cathedral and other venerable
buildings of Tarazona are built in the distinctive "mudejar style," a
delicate lace-like form of brickwork which was created by Muslim master
artisans in Aragon and other provinces even after the re-conquest of those
areas by the Christians. Another unique sight in the town is the only
inhabited bullring in the world, a creaky-looking circular structure that
today contains the apartments of families who hang their laundry from
balconies from which audiences cheer the matadors. People in Tarazona seem
gratified that they are finally beginning the process of healing a
500-year-old wound by celebrating the Jewish heritage of the town. They are
also evidently excited by the possibility that they will soon see a surge of
Jewish visitors, which would give a needed economic boost to a town that
despite its beauty and antiquity, has hitherto been far from the beaten
tourist track. "We look forward to welcoming home to Tarazona today the
descendants of the Jews forced to leave here in 1492," said the town's
mayor, Javier Calavia. "That will be a kind of symbolic closing of the
circle, and will open us to the world in a way we have not been before."
Officials of the Aragonese government in the capital city of Zaragoza, an
hour's drive from Tarazona, point out that their own city of 700,000 also
has a rich history of harmony between Christians, Jews and Muslims and has
much tourist interest as well. Zaragoza's jewel in the crown is clearly the
Aljaferia, a sprawling castle and fortress built by the Muslim conquerers of
Zaragoza in the 10th century that later became the palace of the Christian
kings of Aragon. Today the castle houses the Cortes (Parliament) of Aragon.
Jose Maria Mur, president of the Cortes, said, "We hope the Aljaferia will
serve as a place of encounter for the former Jewish and Muslim communities
of Aragon. Let them come home and reconnect to their Aragonese roots," Juan
Carlos Trillo, Aragon's ambassador to the central government in Madrid,
remarked. "We are gratified that Aragon is finally coming to terms with the
terrible injustice of the expulsion of our Jews, which not only devastated
their lives, but did grievous damage to Aragon itself and the rest of
Spain." Manuel Blasco, director of Zaragoza 2008, an effort by the city to
win the right to host the World Expo of 2008, noted that Zaragoza has
applied for a United Nations designation as a "City of Peace." "Having
been the scene of religious persecution in the past," he said, "we in Aragon
hope to build a brighter future by making a significant contribution to
peacemaking and conflict resolution in the years ahead."

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Pedro C. Mariju�n
Fundaci�n CIRCE
CPS Univ. Zaragoza, 50015 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762036-761863, FAX (34) 976 732078
email: marijuan@posta.unizar.es
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Received on Sat Dec 22 00:10:02 2001