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Jewish Quarters

The old Jewish quarter of Barcelona, located in the city’s Gothic quarter. Although few vestiges remain, in the Centre d'Interpretació del Call visitors can get a good idea of what life was like for the Jewish community of Barcelona during the Middle Ages. The Call or Jewish Quarter forms part of what is now the Gothic Quarter. It was one of the city’s centres of culture in the Middle Ages and home to two synagogues. One of them, the Sinagoga Major, is one of Europe’s oldest, as it is believed to date back to the 6th century. The Jewish Quarter was home to schools, baths and hospitals, but now only a few houses are left standing. It was surrounded by two city walls on the limits of the old Roman settlement. The Jews, however, did not close themselves off from the rest of city as they had houses and workshops outside of these city walls. In the early 13th century the population had grown so much that the Call Menor, the smaller Jewish quarter, was created. Now practically nothing remains of it. The Call Major, the larger Jewish quarter, is home to the Sinagoga Major or Shlomo ben Aderet Synagogue, as it is also known, after the man who was the 13th-century leader of Catalan Judaism, the Rabbi of Barcelona and a banker to kings like James I (the Conqueror). It was the centre of Jewish life in the city until the start of the attacks on the community, the most serious of which, in 1391, ended with the death of 300 Jews. In the following years Jewish cemeteries and synagogues were destroyed and Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. Due to the expulsion decreed by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the quarter fell into decline and its buildings were converted. The Sinagoga Major became a dye works and the Sinagoga Menor was transformed into a Trinitarian convent, of which today only the parish church on Carrer de Ferran dedicated to Saint James remains.

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Ancient Synagogue of Barcelona

The Synagoga Mayor de Barcelona was an ancient synagogue in the center of the city of Barcelona, Spain. Shlomo ben Adret was the officiating rabbi of this synagogue for about 50 years. After many years of being used for other activities, the building at 5 Marlet Street was inaugurated as a synagogue and museum in 2002, thanks to the efforts of the Catalan historian Jaume Riera i Sans in locating the building based on documents such as the route of a tax collector and the specifications in the Talmud on how synagogues should be built. However, the synagogue was actually located at number 9 Salomó ben Adret Street, the adjacent house, and not the one currently promoted as the former synagogue. Currently, the building is not used for daily prayers, but is used for community festivities.

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MUHBA El Call Jewish Quarter Museum

The headquarters of the Barcelona History Museum in the Call, inaugurated in March 2015, is located in the middle of the old Jewish quarter, where once stood the house of Jucef Bonhiac, a veil weaver. It is a building of medieval origin where original remains from the 13th and 14th centuries are preserved. The space of the Museum of History of Barcelona El Call, distributed in three areas, aims to present the history and heritage of the the history and heritage of the Call in a global way. Area I explains the topography of the Call, area II explains the history of the Call and area III shows the cultural legacy of the Call.

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Comunitat Israelita de Barcelona (Israelite Community of Barcelona)

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, several waves of Jewish immigration arrived in Barcelona. This growing population led to the birth of the Comunidad Israelita de Barcelona in December 1918. The first president was a member of the German community, Mr. Edmundo Metzger (Z "L). The use of the word "Israelita", and not "Judía", already reflects the concern of the founders to use a word with a negative charge that prevailed in the collective imagination, since it continued to see the Jews as a deicidal community.

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Casa Adret

Casa Adret is one of the oldest habitable buildings in Barcelona. It is in the middle of “el Call”, the old Jewish quarter of Barcelona, where between the ninth century and fourteenth century, lived the Jews of Barcelona. Its last Jewish owner was called Astruc Adret, who was a Jew from Cervera and that he was the owner of this building in Barcelona. The exact date of construction of the house is not known, but it is probably from the early twelfth century. Back in the day, the first floor was likely rented for some kind of craft or clothing workshop. The rest of the house was also rented to two Jewish families, something that is apparent thanks to the mezuzah holes that one can find in these two of the doors of the house. In Barcelona one can find 6 medieval mezuzah holes, two of which are in Casa Adret. In 1391 a great pogrom took place in el Call, when denizens of Barcelona attacked the Jews who lived there. They were groups of local rioters who, following a tendency of the whole peninsula, entered el Call, beating and killing people, and destroying the neighborhood. Surviving Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, flee the country or die. In the case of Astruc Adret, he converted to Catholicism, changed his name to Lluís de Junyent and was forced to sell his properties, moving to the town of Falset. It is from this year, 1393, that we have the first document about this building. The document of forced sale of Lluis de Junyent to the merchant Miquel Marçal. In the year 1428 there was a big earthquake in Barcelona. For that reason, the façade of Casa Adret and the building next to it are inclined towards each other, making the distance between the two extremely close in the upper levels. From this point on little is known of what happens with this house, other than some of the uses it has had over time. During the 19th century there was a funeral parlor operating in the lower part of the house, called "La Palma", along with a musical school. In the 90's the building, in a completely dilapidated state, was bought by Andreu Mas Colell, former Minister of Economy of the Generalitat, and Esther Zilberstein, his wife. In 2001 they commissioned two prestigious architects, Elias Torres and José Antonio Martinez Lapeña, to renovate the building. Since 2018 it has served as a Jewish cultural center and a hub for local Jewish organizations.

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Great Synagogue of Barcelona

The Sinagoga Mayor, also known as the Great or Ancient Synagogue, is believed to be an ancient synagogue located in the centre of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It has been described as one of the oldest synagogues in Europe. After many centuries of being used for other purposes, the building re-opened as a synagogue and museum in 2002. Though the synagogue is not open for regular prays services, it is used for special and festive occasions. Archaeological investigations show that the original structure of the building was built in the third or fourth century, though whether this structure was the synagogue cannot be said with certainty. The building was significantly expanded during the 13th century. King James I visited the synagogue in 1263 at the end of the Barcelona Disputation. Shlomo ben Aderet served as the rabbi of the Sinagoga Major for 50 years. When the Jews of Barcelona were massacred in 1391, the building was used for many other purposes, with its original use being forgotten. However, in 1987, Jaume Riera y Sans began researching the location of the Sinagoga Major. His research was based on a reconstruction of the route followed by a thirteenth-century tax collector that ended at the Sinagoga Major. Riera's work led Miguel Iaffa to examine the exterior of the building and he noted that the structure had been built in compliance with religious requirements that the building should face Jerusalem and that it should have two windows. In fact, the eastward orientation of the building (toward Jerusalem) broke with the northwest/southeast alignment of the streets in its neighborhood. Iaffa purchased the building in 1995 when its owner put it up for sale. The Call Association of Barcelona (Catalan: Associació Call de Barcelona), led by Iaffa, undertook the recovery and restoration of the synagogue. The opening of The Sinagoga Major to the public in 2002 drew in 20,000 visitors during 2005. In 2003, two Canadians became the first couple to be married at the Sinagoga Major in more than 600 years, and in 2006, a New York attorney donated a 500-year-old sefer Torah (Torah scroll) to the synagogue.

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Jewish Quarters

Ancient Synagogue of Barcelona

MUHBA El Call Jewish Quarter Museum

Comunitat Israelita de Barcelona (Israelite Community of Barcelona)

Casa Adret

Great Synagogue of Barcelona