Re: VACATION STORY

I have passed along this story to a colleague here who studies Sephardic culture, hoping that it might spark some interest.

Many thanks.

Jim

--On Saturday, December 22, 2001 12:11 AM +0100 "\"Pedro C. Mariju�n\"" <marijuan@posta.unizar.es> wrote:

>
> 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
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------- 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."
>
> =========================================
> 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
> =========================================
>

Jim Cogswell
Associate Professor and Director of the Visitors Program
The University of Michigan School of Art & Design
2000 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069
telephone (734) 764-6460
fax (734) 936-0469
jcogs@umich.edu
Received on Tue Jan 15 20:15:41 2002